Wasteland
by Siha Krios
Summary: A girl disillusioned when her home is violently taken from her she strives to survive in a world so alien to what she knew Believing herself to be the only survivor she holds little hope for the future in the wasteland adult content/language/violent/dark
1. A Girl

**Anything drawn from Fallout line is the sole property of Bioware/Black Isle/ Bethesda. **

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The desolate waste was a vast expanse that tumbled out before her like so much garbage spilling from a hole torn in a black, plastic bag to an already filth covered floor. Her olfactory senses had long been accustomed to the stench that permeated the area. A thing would require a pungent oder indeed to stand out from the general stink of rot and decay. A harsh, grit filled breeze pelted her face with dirt and sand. The pilot's goggles she'd found just that morning protected her eyes from the sting her skin was not spared. She could scarcely recall the last time she'd bathed or had purified water to drink. She took a half-full packet of rad-away from the inner pocket of her bombers jacket and finished off what remained. She carelessly tossed the empty package aside, letting the wind take it, fluttering, to settle on the mounds of refuse that littered the land. Debris and dry earth crunched beneath her step, settling as dust on the toes of her boots. The sky above bore down on her like a physical depression, dark and daunting. The dull, tawny clouds seemed to drag slowly across the sky, pulled by the faster winds in the stratosphere. They did not look to be the type that threatened rain. There was still time to find refuge from the night.

Knowing that if she just kept walking she would find some miniscule pocket of what was now considered civilization, she drudged onward. If she was extremely fortunate, she may find temporary shelter with a bed for little to no caps in whatever hamlet lay ahead. There were other ways she could pay for any provisions the citizens might be willing to part with. She'd learned to use that asset to her advantage over the years. Her first experience was not so tainted as a form of transaction for food or meds. She had been genuinely in love, and he with her, or so she had believed. At the tender age of fourteen, all was well in her protected little world. He had been nearly twenty, and the subject of many a young girl's fantasies. Her father would not have approved, but there were many places to hide in the dark corners of the vault. Looking back now she thought little more of him than she did of the ones with whom she bartered for water and rest. Though in the darkness of night, while staring at the stars that peeked in through holes in the roof, she clung to the childish delusions of moments spent with him. The memories kept her sane while some gruff and dirty despot took his payment from her body like an animal in rut. It was a different time, then. Almost a different era, it seemed. The age of her innocent youth had been only a few years ago, but it was as if lifetimes had passed since those more care free days.

That way of living was lost to the defilement of the world outside the vault. She couldn't, or didn't want to, remember what had happened to rip her from the safe security of that place. It was just as well. There was nothing to return to. Everything she knew had been destroyed. Everyone who lived there, everyone she loved was gone. She was certain she was the only one to have survived. The past was lost and everything in it. She no more remembered that tranquility than she could remember the name of the man whose touch she would never feel again. Or what it was like to know the love of a father and mother. Now there was only death verses survival. There was only decay and rot eating at the edges of anything that lived. Now there was only the barren lands of a country that had lost it's name to a pageless, bookless history. There was only the wasteland.


	2. Hamlet

Nothing was quite like seeing the lights of a town against the twilight of night fall. The hope and simultaneous dread the sight brought to her was enough to keep her feet plodding along with the same sloth which had carried her the many miles passed. The settlement was too small to be a slaver base or a raider camp. It had to be a town. Now she need only determine if they were friendly, or crazy. She neared the high walls of metal sheeting stolen from crashed planes and cars. She could see the lights of the sectarian town within beaming through the cracks. The expected shout of a watchman called down to her from the shadows over the gated door.

"Are ya here fer trouble?"

"I ain't" She answered simply with the same dialect.

"If ya changes yer mind..."

The watchman loaded a round into his rifle. The click of the bullet being preped to fire echoed down to her all the warning intended.

"We's got ways of changes it back."

"I understand." She answered.

A loud creak and thunderous screeching latter the gate ground it's way up the walls to reveal a narrow doorway. Two armed men stood just inside the door, ready for any disruption in the order of their town. They eyed her cautiously as she entered into the light, keeping their weapons trained on her as she pushed the goggles up to her forehead. The walls stopped the wind that now sounded like tiny beads dropping on tin against the armored perimeter. She let her eyes adjust to the brightness before continuing down the beaten dirt path to the best place to get information, the town bar. The familiar sounds and smells that floated through the dry air told her she might find what she needed without much trouble.

Most of the patrons were too drunk to realize a new comer had entered the pub, but a few gave her a once over before returning to their drinks and loud conversation. Nothing about her was particularly remarkable. She had dark hair that had been bleached by the sun and tanned skin, weathered by the elements, like most folk. Her most striking feature was her once bright blue eyes, now dulled by the hardships of life on the surface. She kept her pip-boy hidden under the sleeve of her worn, dusty jacket. It drew too much attention when she left it exposed. She casually crossed the wooden floor to the bar, her boots clunked dully and kicked up little clouds of dust as she went. The ghoul behind the counter calmly cleaned a glass and filled it with a sickly yellow ale, then plunked it down in front of her without a second glance. She took it gladly. More often than not, beer was more pure than the water. Her dry, sun cracked lips curled over the lip of the glass, tentatively nursing the beverage before she downed it in large gulps that earned her lewd stars from some of the men. She made mental note of those that did, whether openly or secretly. The target list would narrow down from there. It was time to set her plan into action if she was going to sleep in a bed tonight. She pushed the empty glass forward a tad and nodded to the bar tender for another round, which he obliged her in silence.

"You're not much of a conversationalist, are ya?" She asked him, flatly.

The ghoul gave her a hard star then opened his mouth. The lack of a tongue inside was only slightly less disturbing than the atrocious, mangled knot of scar tissue left behind. It seemed he had once been too much of a talker and someone cut the conversation short. She did her best to hide her disgust behind the distorted glass of her drink.

"Sorry." She muttered.

The ghoul simply frowned at her and moved on to the next demanding customer. She followed him with her eyes for a few moments as he silently served the 'pink skins' their fill of the weak beer. This time she nursed the golden liquid much more slowly. She needed to keep her wits about her and this would likely not be her last mug. Moments later the glass was half empty and she still sat alone. She was considering dropping one shoulder of her jacked down far enough to show a tease of skin when a middle aged looking man took the stool next to her. At first he just sat there in his dirty denim pants and ragged tee with his boot heels hooked over the rungs of the stool. He rubbed the back of his neck as if nervous before turning his stubbly face to look at her. She pretended not to notice, feeling a bit nervous herself. She couldn't have looked too appealing with a mask of dirt circling her eyes where he goggles had been. Absently she wiped her fingers over her face to disperse the grim, succeeding only in smudging it in heavy, dark streaks.

"I know a place ya could warsh up."

The man next to her spoke softly in a gruff voice. It seemed to speak volumes of the life he'd lead, the kind of man he was. In her mind she began to build him up as a gentle care taker of the lost and wandering. It would make things easier later. She glanced up at him. He was tall, and well built, handsome even, with soft, dark eyes and sandy hair. Wondering why no one else had approached her, she let her eyes scan the room. Many of the other men were too drunk to stand, much less walk up to her and petition her for a nights company. The others seemed sober enough to reveal their respect or fear of the man who now spoke to her with envious glances and sealed lips. She returned her attention to the dweller and took another sip of beer. The pink flesh of her tongue peeked out of hiding to lick away the froth on her upper lip before she asked her question.

"An' where might _that_ be?"

"I tell ya what, miss," He replied. "Y'let me pay fer the beer, I know ya ain't got the caps t' pay fer 'em, an' I'll give ya what yer seekin' fer as long as ya tarry here."

"What are ya wantin' in return, stranger." She asked, refusing to meet his eye.

"You're the stranger here, waste-lander." He mocked her, "An' I ain't askin' fer a damned thang ya wasn't already offerin' t' the bes' taker, an' tha'd be me. Ya see, miss," He continued to talk low and soft as he sipped his own ale. "I'm the bar keep. Ya might says I own this town 'cause I owns the pub. An' ever'ne knows tha's the bes' place in town t' get cleaner water."

"I see." She answered.

She'd found her mark. The kingpin of a small dig like this usually was the owner of the bar. At least this one wasn't old, fat and bald. The worst was when they were old and wrinkled up like a prune left in the sun too long. When that was the case she tried to find other accommodations, avoiding the man until she found another source of provisions, or simply left and took her chances outside the city walls. Sometimes she got lucky and managed to hide until morning under the eaves of the last house or on the roof of the water pump building. Luckier still was if a matronly figure let her stay for a few chore duties, like cleaning the floors or washing the laundry.

After another quick sweep of the room, she noticed the women here weren't unattractive and seemed to be closer to his age. She saw none that appeared to be younger than thirty. That may have been why he singled her out for himself, which she so often found was the case with men. They liked their women younger, softer, tighter than the presumably more well traveled flesh of older feminine companionship. Bitting her lip, she decided not to ask why he'd picked her, assuming she'd already guessed his answer.

"Where's the tub?" She asked.

This time she met his eyes and offering a grin. She was surprised to find them a silvery grey without a hint of the crassness he had expressed in his speech. The strong angles of his stubbly jaw supported a powerful, square shaped chin. Above his chin and below a distinguished nose his almost pouty lips thinned into their own grin. He reached into his pant pocket one one large, callous hand and pulled out a rusty looking, bronze key. The sound of the key scratching across the surface of the bar could not be heard over the din of inebriated men singing drinking songs with their fellows. She waited for the man to take his fingers off the metal as he pushed it toward her. Delicate fingers with grim and grit packed under the nails curled around the key as if it were something she was stealing.

"There's a room 'round the back o' the star. That key'll let ya in. There's soap an' a towel. I reckon this bunch'll be on it's way out 'fore too long." He nodded to his laughing patrons. "Jus' lock the door once yer in there an' after ya leave. You'll find the same key unlocks the room at the far end up stars."

The man got up and downed the rest of his ale in a few gulps, then set the mug back down on the splintering bar. He let the back of his hand graze over her tightly clinched fist before walking way. Her eyes followed after him as he made his rounds to each table, ensuring his customers were having a good time and spending their caps. Once again she tried to imagine him as a caring, noble man who only wished to provide a bit of happiness to the people he served, whether it be through drink or humorous conversation. Keeping to that thought she downed the last of her own ale, before hopping down off the stool and seeking out the locked door that would lead her to the wash room. It was easy enough to locate, hidden behind a tattered curtain in an inset alcove. She was a little taken back when the ghoul came out of the kitchen doors directly across from the wash room. He had a mug of ale in one hand and a plater with a sad looking sandwich on it in the other. His dull, hazel eyes flicked to the key still held captive in her fist, then locked firmly onto her own eyes. His expression softened to something that may have been pain or empathy. If he still had his tongue, she was sure he would have said something. As it was, he offered a slight shake of his head, as if trying to conceal a warning or perhaps expressing disapproval, then proceeded to deliver the order.

The curtain felt as thread bare as it looked as she pushed it aside and ducked behind it's relative privacy. The warped wooden door unlocked easily enough, creaking on it's hinges as she opened it and slipped inside. Finding the pull chain, she clicked on the single bulb that hung from the sloped ceiling under the stair. In the dim light she could see the washroom, such as it was, afforded a stained toilet and claw footed tub. There was also a cracked mirror of which the reflective backing was flaking off to the dusty floor. It was the first time in ages since she'd seen her reflection looking back at her without the brown tinge of some irradiated puddle of water. She had been right about the rings of filth around her eyes. Maybe the bar keep was simply taking pity on her for being such a scruffy runt of a girl. Her hair was frayed and wind blown. Her skin could hardly be seen beneath the grime. Only her eyes peeked out clean and fresher than most things in this land. Locking the door she placed the key over the door frame, then set about the task set before her.

Her fingers seemed to work on their own volition to begin the process of peeling away the layers of clothing. She lay each article across the seat of the toilet so as not to soil them further, then turned the knobs on the tub to start the water flowing. Lastly she removed the pip-boy from her arm, revealing the lack of sun or dirt on the protected patch of creamy pale skin. The reminder of her past rested safely atop the tank of the commode as she set about the business of cleaning up. She washed out her under clothes first, then her tee. She could wear the jacket and denims up to the room and hang the damp clothes up in the room to dry. The rubber plug hung by a chain from the faucet. Fitting it snuggly into the drain she finally climbed in the tub to wash herself. It was indescribable how good if felt to submerge herself in water that didn't have muck and mire floating in it, or that wasn't glowing and likely to cause her to sprout an extra limb or grow another eye. The bar of soap must have passed over the same area of skin three times before she moved on to scrubbing the filth from her hair.

After a long while she pulled the plug and dried herself with the lone towel draped over the exposed water pipes. She dressed just as she'd planed, tucking her damp clothes under her jacket. Reaching up over the door frame she found the key with her finger tips, catching her reflection in the mirror. It gave her motive to pause. Seeing her skin so much cleaner than it had been was startling. She'd nearly forgotten the freckles that played across her nose and cheeks like stars in reverse relief on her face. The darkening circles under her brighter eyes gave her cause to stop her gawking an get on with what had to be done so she could rest. She would need an early start if she her plan to steal food and water then vanish was to succeed.


	3. Transaction

The door creaked open. It seemed much louder than it had before. She noticed the other sounds of clashing glasses and clanking plates was gone, as was the laughter and loud banter of drunken locals. Wondering how long she'd been, and if her benefit would be upset with her for keeping him waiting, she considered risking the theft and making a run for it then instead of waiting. She promptly reconsidered when the ghoul appeared out of the kitchen once more, as if he'd been waiting for her. She felt as though her heart could be heard pounding in her chest, afraid he knew what she'd been thinking. To her amusement he offered her a sandwich and an attempt at a kind grin. She took the sandwich from him, returning the grin.

"Thank ye." She said softly.

The ghoul nodded back and turned back into the kitchen. She looked after him for a few seconds, then shrugged off her own paranoia. The simple sandwich of mole-rat and slimy lettuce was gone before her foot touched the first step. Food was food. It made little difference how it tasted, if she ate it slow enough for it to matter. The wood planks creaked and moaned as she climbed the warped and grayed planks. The first two doors at the top of the landing were shut tight. Beyond them she could hear the soft moaning and panting of harlots earing their caps. She could not judge them. She was no better than they. Going to the beds of men whose names she'd forgotten, if she was ever told them, in hamlets that were just the same. Only her payment was the safety of the walls and the comfort of food and drink, the promise of rest in a warm bed and provisions to send her on her way. These things were worth more than the caps to purchase them, though she often wondered what it would be like to buy her needs in a legitimate manner. Her father would have been in a rage of disappointment in her, ashamed to call her his daughter. Shame was something she didn't have the luxury to worry about any more. As she neared the last door she pulled the key from her pocket. She'd stored it there to eat the sandwich, which was settling with familiar discomfort in her unaccustomed stomach.

The key unlocked the door as easily as it had the washroom door. The door creaked softly on the hinges as she entered the room. She was surprised to find it empty of the man she'd expected to find waiting for her. He would come, of that she had no doubt. She cared not where he was at the moment. If he forgot their arrangement and wandered off with some other willing woman, than it was all the better for her. Draping her damp clothes over a line strung up on the far side of the room, she proceeded to search the wardrobe for a spare tee she could 'borrow' to sleep in. There was precious little in the moderate space. The wardrobe through which she currently searched, an old mattress on a tired looking brass frame a few feet away, and a worn out oriental rug between the two pieces of furniture for decor. Finding nothing but a box of matches and a candle in the wardrobe she resigned herself to sleep in the nude. In any case, it wasn't as if she wouldn't end up that way by dawn. She looked up at the ceiling. There were no holes there that she could see, but there was a window that looked out onto the center of town. Keeping her jacket closed with one hand, she leaned against the window sill and gazed out over the makeshift buildings to the darkness beyond the walls and the stars above. They were the one thing she loved about being out here in the desolate fields of ruin. Stars were a thing one only saw in books or paintings drawn by children when she lived in the vault. The first time she saw the open sky and the brightness of the sun she thought she'd died and landed in hell. But when the coolness of night came and the stars shone bright next to the perfect circle of silver in the velvet black, it was a beauty she'd never dreamed could exist. Even now their brilliance and mystery held her captive, drawing her attention way from the creaking of the door as the bar keep slipped wordlessly inside and locked the door behind him with is own key.

"I heard tale," He began.

His words nearly scared her out of her skin, but life in the wastes had tempered her against actually jumping at every unexpected sound. Instead she continued to look out at the night sky, turning her ear to him ever so slightly to let him know she was listening.

"That if ya stare too long out int' the black, it consumes yer soul and leaves ya empty as an egg that ain't got noth'n inside it."

"I would have t' tell ya that it ain't so." She replied softly, tearing her eyes from the tiny dots of brilliance to look at him as he undressed by the bed. "I would have t' say that it's quite the opposite. I feel as though m'soul is filled with the light that shines through like as a candle behind black paper full of holes."

"Ye speak well fer one so young." He grinned at her, and motioned for her to join him by the bed.

Reluctantly she left the sill and slipped her boots from her feet. She left the rest on. He seemed the type, in her mind, to be one who enjoyed opening the present, so to speak. She would be right and she would be wrong, for it wholly depended on his mood at the time. As it was, that night she was right. He'd left his denims on for the moment. His broad, hair covered chest exposed to her in the dim light that filtered in from the moon. His coarse hands gripped the collar of her jacket, pulling it back and slowly down over her slender arms, then letting it fall to the floor. He didn't tackle her the way she thought he might, but he did ask her a question she wasn't often asked.

"What's yer name?"

His eyes were not on her breasts as she assumed they would be, but on her eyes as he softly spoke the words. For a moment she couldn't remember. So rare was the occasion that she needed a name, she had nearly forgotten it. The sound floated up to the surface of her thoughts as a bubble rises from the depths. She could remember the feeling of it on her tongue like licking the roof of her mouth, then 'own a' something or another. The name almost formed itself on her lips as the old memories of a life that might have been a dream ticked the back of her mind.

"Leona."

"It's lovely." He smiled, then fidgeted.

It wasn't a gesture she expected from a grown man who boasted control of a town. She began to feel awkward standing bare chested in front of him.

"Thank ye."

She took a step toward him, reaching decisively for the buttons on his fly. He didn't back away, but he didn't move to touch her.

"Do ye wanna know mine?" He asked.

"Do ya want me to?" She answered him with another question.

"It's Jack." He replied.

"Okay. Jack. It's a good name."

That seemed to make him happy. For whatever reason, that seemed to be what he was waiting for, as if they needed to be properly introduced before he could take her to his bed. Yet, he still did not suddenly pounce on her. Instead his rough hands pushed her newly clean fingers away from the buttons on his fly and unfastened hers with quick, experienced movements. Peeling back he open fabric, Jack pushed the waist of the pant down over her naked hips until they were loose about her thighs. The dry skin of his hands grazed up over her hips to her waist where he picked her up and sat her squarely on the bed. She couldn't help but be impressed with his strength as his chest flexed before her. He took hold of the hem of the denim and slowly pulled them the rest of the way off her legs, leaving her exposed with moonlight drifting over her narrow shoulders. Finishing what she started, he removed his own denims. The thing that protruded from him was more than she'd ever seen a man wield, and she worried that she had not the ability to accommodate his length or girth. In her mind she tried to think of a way to deter him from his lust as he climbed up onto the bed and repositioned her so that her head could lay on the flat, hard pillow.

The bed beneath squeaked under the weight of him as he palmed her knees in his hand and pushed her legs wide for his access. She resisted weakly, then let him open her. He admired her body in the faint light for a few moments before he settled over her. His rough hands fondled her breast that were little more than handfuls in his grip. Her mind began searching for something to focus on, but there were no peek holes for the stars above. The fabric of the mattress felt smooth from age under her finger tips as she tried to grip something to steel herself for what would soon come. The man's heavy breath was hot on her chest. His mouth left wetness behind were he suckled her malt colored nipples and nibbled the swell of her breasts. When his kisses trailed up her neck to her chin her fingers worked frantically for a hold. His dry lips took hers in a kiss that pulled a moan from her. The bulk of his weight settled on her, pushing a sigh from her as her breath was pilfered. Pressure presented itself to the delicate flesh of her entry. With no finger holds yet found she wrapper her arms around _him_ instead, digging into the muscles of his back.

One of his hands released her, his mouth parted from hers as he looked down at their sexes. He worked the head of him, stroking it between her small, pink labia, spreading his precum to moisten her entry. Satisfied with the slickness, he supported himself with his free hand and slowly pushed himself inside her. He groaned his pleasure as he watched her open up around his head to oblige his mass. He took his time to penetrate her, allowing her time to adjust to him. She could feel her body yielding to his persistence, grateful he did not just plow into her. She felt him stretching her to fit him, delving a little deeper when she would whimper beneath him. Pained memories of her deflowering sifted to the surface of her thought, helping her to abide the intrusion. After a few minutes of no end to his insistence, she wondered just how much more of him she could take without ripping when the finality of the heat of his pelvis pressed against her. She sighed with a measure of relief that the hard part was over. Jack must have taken it as a sigh of pleasure, for he immediately began to pump himself slowly in and out of her petite frame.

His eyes stayed on the point of their joining, as if mesmerized by the displacement of her flesh around his manhood. His eyes would close during the moments he chose to lick her nipples or kiss her mouth. Rudely his tongue would force it's way past her lips and probe her mouth, or lap at her neck as if he found honey there. She tried to imagine the stars above her, that his shadow rolling over her was a fevered hallucination. While he was handsome, and she was attracted to him, she did not feel the passion he inflicted on her. But her body betrayed her mind, wetting with physical excitement, encouraging him to thrust harder and faster into the building heat and quivering tightness. Her lips willingly accepted his probing tongue. Her head rolled to expose her neck for his delight. Her hips bucked and her back arched with waves of ecstacy that rolled over her physical form. Moans escaped her throat. Her spine tingled at the sounds of his groans. Fire blazed in her loins as liquid heat squirted from her when her body climaxed. Her skin was ablaze with carnal desire where he touched her, spreading her willing thighs to pound her eager lust.

Breathing came in heavy, panting cries. Delicate fingers gripped the dull brass bars of the head board while rougher ones sought to tease and explore the intricacies of femininity. Lust, seemingly unabated, endured until the first rays of dawn peaked over the horizon and cast a pale, warm glow over sweat slick skin. The improvement of light only further enticed masculine yearning for the swollen and reddened flesh on which he wrought his ceaseless fervor. When at last completion came and filled the persecuted void with white-hot release, dwindling rage left the accepting embrace of surrender. Exhaustion lulled them both to a dreamless sleep and held them there until the suns light told of looming dusk. Man woke to earn his bread, pausing first to accost the vulnerable slumbering.


	4. Waking

Leona woke early the next morning. Faint light of dawn peaked up over the horizon, affording just enough light to the room for her eyes to see. For a few seconds she did not know where she was. Memory after restful sleep brought on by exhaustion was a slippery thing to recall. She felt the heat of a body next to her. The snores of a man rumbled softly in his chest and exhaled with heat on the back of her neck. One of his burly arms was slung over her waist, the rough fingers of the hand attached curled around the mound between her thighs. The wetness there told her of his explorations in her sleep. It was just as well. She need not be conscious for his pleasure to be had, and she lamented not the experience.

Snaking her fingers around his palm, she eased his hand from her loins, then carefully rolled from under his arm. Toes found the softness of the old rug on the floor as she settled his arm gently down on the mattress. She found her clothes, dry, and still hanging from the line. Dressing quickly, she took her jacket and denims from the floor and found her boots still by the window. Glancing down as she pushed her feet back into the worn leather, she noted that no other soul appeared to be about save the guards. No worries of _them_ troubled her mind. Folks were always more willing to let another mouth leave than they were to add a hungry belly to the table.

She crept slowly across the room toward the door, mentally kicking herself for not waiting to put the boots on until she had reached the lower floor. She managed to make it to the door without waking him. Grateful to find the key still in her pocket she unlocked the door. The tumbler clicked loudly in her ears. She looked back sharply over her shoulder to find, to her relief, the still sleeping man. Slowing turning the knob, she waited to open the door in time with one of his snores in hopes of concealing the creak of the hinges. She shut the door just as carefully, but didn't risk waking him to lock it back. The other doors no longer moaned or sighed as she past. The same could not be said for the floor or the steps leading down to the tired pub. Her eyes searched the dark corners for any that may be hiding there. Her ears listened intently for sounds of scuffling feet or creaking planks that were not from her own movements. There were none to be heard. The need for haste threatened to quicken her steps, that would surely echo loudly in the empty space and wake any who slumbered. Virtue of patience prevailed and she continued her silent journey to the kitchen.

The hinges complained softly as she pushed open the rusty, metal door. Beyond it the simple kitchen promised everything she sought. She found an empty burlap sack by the door and moved quickly to fill it with potatoes from the basket nearby. Searching the open cabinet shelves she found a few tin cans of cram, and a several boxes of sugar bombs and Blamco Mac and Cheese. She stuffed what she could in the sack, then turned to the fridge that hummed steadily behind her. The door was a little sticky, and opened with a sucking and cracking sound. Each shelf was loaded to capacity with meats and even bottles of milk and purified water. These she exchanged for the boxes of sugar bombs. Water was more important than sugar. When she could fit no more into the sack she closed the door only to spill the contents to the floor, startled by the unexpected face of the ghoul that waited for her. He stood, arms crossed, blocking the door regarding her with a cool, disapproving gaze. She wondered why she hadn't heard the squeaky hinges when he entered and silently cursed herself for her inattention. When the bar tender didn't move to apprehend her she hurriedly gathered up her loot and repacked the sack, watching him with wide, curious eyes.

"Are ya goin' t' stop me?"

She asked him, trying to think of questions he could answer with a 'yes' or 'no'. He slowly shook his head, but his gaze, nor his feet faltered.

"Are ya goin' t' help me?"

Again he shook his head. She wanted to ask 'Well, just what _are _you going to do?', but that question could not be answered with a nod or shake of the head. She could read, and he could write if he remembered how, but there was a sore lack of pencil and pad. She sighed with frustration and a growing sense of alarm. Blood pulsed in her ears like a drum beat on the heels of the pounding of her heart. Her mouth and throat felt much drier than they had already been. There were no windows or back doors. Only a small opening than ran the length of the back wall near the ceiling for smoke. Big enough for a small rodent or roach maybe. Certainly not of adequate size for her escape. She was wholly at the mercy of a ghoul whose intentions were disturbingly unclear.

"Will ya let me leave?" She asked, then glanced down at the sack full of food and added, "With the vittles?"

The ghoul huffed and narrowed his eyes at her, perhaps frustrated with the double question. He raised one finger and nodded, then added a second and shook his head. It was as she feared. She had no weapons. Her last gun had, for all intents and purposes, fallen apart in her hand fighting off a rabid mole-rat. She'd yet to learn the art of repair of the weapons she acquired, though not for lack of trying. The useless shells felt heavy in her jacket pocket just then, as she stared back at the sentient rotting meat that blocked her path.

"Why not? I earned 'em!" She retorted, even more frustrated as panic threatened to take hold.

"I sure as _shit_ didn' go through _hell_ jus' fer a days rest in a horny man's bed!" She spat.

The ghoul took a step closer to her, still blocking her way out in the narrow room. Opening his mouth he pointed at the gruesome display that he'd shown her the night she arrived. Then he took a potato from her sack and acted as if he were eating it and put it back, once again pointing to the gore of his missing tongue. His mouth snapped shut when foot steps could be heard over head. Dust sifted down from the ceiling with each thud in a trail leading across the floor above toward the door. The ghoul's eyes grew wide and he snatched the sack from her, quickly putting everything back. She wasn't sure she understood what he had tried to tell her, but she knew her moment was lost. The ghoul grabbed her arm firmly with his free hand, balancing the sack against his hip with the other, and ushered her out the kitchen door. He her toward the tattered curtain just as the door above creaked on it's hinges, and vanished back into the kitchen. She took the hint and ducked behind the colorless fabric. Fumbling with key from her pocket, she shakily unlocked the washroom door and slipped inside. The chain from the light clicked against the plastic of her goggles on her head. Reaching up she turned on the light and proceeded to pull down her pants and take a relieve her bladder in the toilet. As the dust sifted down on her from the stairs she realized she'd forgotten to lock the door behind her. The coarse paper she found stuffed between the tank and the wall did the job she needed it to do. She flushed as she yanked her panties and denims back up. Her fingers were electric with nervous fear as she zipped, buttoned and yanked off the light, grabbing the knob to open the door. To her dismay the knob was ripped from her grasp when it opened from the other side.

"Ye jus' finished, I see."

Jack grinned down at her. There was something in that grin she didn't like. Something that had been there from the start, but she'd ignored it. She was only going to stay for one night, steal what she needed and run. Now it seemed she should have listened to her instincts more closely.

"Yeah. I, uhm, was gonna see 'bout breakfast." She said, tentatively.

"Yeah, I 'spect ya are mighty hungry. I s'pose ye've earned 've met Egor. He's 'ready in 'ere I'm sure. He'll help ya anyway ya need. The food's prob'ly not like what they got in the vaults, but it'll feed ya."

Alarm screamed in her mind. He must have seen the device poking out of her jacket pocket or noticed the weight of it when he removed the jacket from her shoulders. She should have hidden it. How could she have been so careless? Surely she had not been so foolish as to allow her physical attraction to him muddle her mind so severely. Unconsciously, she patted the bulge in her pocket.

Jack's eyes flicked to the movement, then back to the girl's face. He grinned again and shook his head at her.

"Don't ya worry yer perdy self 'bout nothin'. I don't want yer gizmo." He assured her.

His calloused hand left his hip where it had settled after finding her inside the washroom, and cupped her cheek. His fingers kneaded into her unkempt hair as his palm lifted her face to his.

"I jus' want ya to feel free to stay h're with me fer as long as ye like." He said softly.

His voice was kind, and there was no malice in his eyes, but his words send a chill down her spine and set a knot in her gut. He leaned in as if to kiss her, but his lips brushed past hers over smooth skin to her ear. He did kiss her then, on the sensitive area just behind her lobes. Butterflies danced around the knot in her stomach, her heart beat harder against her chest, and her breath caught as a lump in her throat. No other profiter had said such things or acted as kind or genteel, to say nothing of his libido or ability to encourage pleasure in her body. Her mind, however, was ripe with paranoia and sending signals to flee to legs and feet that were numb to hear them.

"Okay." She breathed.

It was all she could do to walk away when he took his hand from her face and stood aside for her to pass. Dazed, she crossed the hall to the kitchen and sat down on the crate on which she'd found the empty burlap sack. Igor promptly presented her with some Dandy Boy Apples and a mug of milk. She took them absently from him and ate them more slowly than she'd eaten anything since leaving the vault. She couldn't stay, could she? A glance up at the ghoul busy about the kitchen, cleaning and preparing for business told her there was a dangerous side to this man. There was a dangerous side to anyone who survived beyond child hood that didn't come from the vaults. She wondered if he was honorable enough to trust him, to stay with him. But for how long? She was a toy. He didn't know her, didn't love her... if anyone loved anyone any more. He would tire of her and then send her out. Would that be so bad? He was handsome and he had food and good water, shelter. The town was protected from the dangers of the wastes. She'd never considered staying in one of the towns she passed through, none had so tempting an offer.

Glancing up at the ghoul again she remembered his animated warning against taking the food. At first his display had confused her in her state of panic, but now she wondered if he'd been caught stealing food and that was how he lost his tongue. She would have expected the loss of a hand, or a finger, but that could inhibit his ability to work. The tongue was a better choice in that circumstance.

"He's asked me t' stay." She said suddenly.

Egor continued to work silently, washing pans and mugs, drying plates and cooking meat for Jack's breakfast. She thought he might be ignoring her, but changed her mind when he grunted nonchalantly in response.

"Do ya think it a bad idea?" She pressed.

Egor turned to her and shrugged then pointed at her. His brow was lifted comically high to exaggerate his expression. She giggled a little, but she got the drift. It was her choice, her decision. It would sort of be like living in the vault again, but after living in the open for the last two or three years... she wasn't sure exactly how long it had been. She wasn't sure she could live among other people again for one, or live within walls again for two. It was a lot to contemplate.

"Maybe I'll stay a few more days." She said plainly.

The vernacular was common and easy enough to learn, but speaking it was difficult for her. Too many dropped vowels and consonants strung together didn't fit her mouth. She preferred to speak clearly when afforded the necessity to speak at all. Using the native dialect seemed to help make the locals more at ease about accepting in a wonderer from the wastelands. So she became proficient in order to archive her goals.

The unmistakable scent of cooked mole-rat filled the kitchen. She'd finished her apples and milk. Egor took her glass and the empty package and shooed her out of the room like an old maid might shoo away children poking their fingers in the pie. She noticed Jack sitting by a dirty window at a rickety, round, wooden table big enough for two or three people. The yellow light that drifted in from the dawn highlighted the muscular tones of his form sitting shirtless in an armless chair. His strong face was pointed toward the light, eyes closed as if in prayer. The morning shone almost as gold on his skin, revealing the lines of age in the creases of his eyes and forehead, and the corners of his mouth. She wondered at his age and what his life had been up to this point. She wondered why she cared. She'd thought about joining him, but the realization of her thoughts prompted her to return to the room instead. Her decision was altered when two men, one from each of the other doors up stairs, emerged bed ragged and sweaty. They descended the steps and left without a word, eyeing her as they went with open carnal curiosity. She like their's even less than she had liked Jack's.

The bar keep must have been distracted by the opening and closing of doors, for he ceased his idle waiting to look at the girl in clothes that didn't fit properly and hair that had not known comb or brush in some time. He watched her as she stood, undecided of where she should go, in the middle of the parlor. His silvery eyes caught the light as it beamed through them at an angle, illuminating his irises with color like amber. When she turned toward him and took steps to sit with him, he smiled. It was a warm, close lipped smile that welcomed the company of the girl as she took the seat opposite him. The bang of the kitchen door being pushed open by a metal tray, pulled his eyes from her adolescent freckled face.

The scent of mole-rat steak and steamed fruit waft over to them long before the breakfast arrived with two sets of forks and two glasses of water. He had expected her to join him. She wasn't sure if this made her feel special or manipulated. Perhaps it was both. Only time would tell, and she had time to give. A few day, just a few days. Then she would decide if she would stay a while longer.


	5. Breakfast

Jack pulled a large hunting knife from under the table. She assumed he had it sheathed in his boot. She had no reason to believe he was going to threaten her with it, so when he started cutting the steak , she waited patently for him to push her half toward her.

"Did ya sleep well?" He asked her in polite conversation.

Glancing up, she nodded with a mouth full of meat

"Good. Glad t' hear it. So," he mulled over a bite mid thought. "Might ya be stayin' by a while?"

"I might. A day or two. I've nowhere perticular t' be." She answered.

She expected him to go on trying to convince her to stay or to finish breakfast in silence. For a time that was what he did. She ate and watched him eat with the slowness of a man who worries not from where his next meal might come. Egor moved like a ghost in and out of the kitchen, the squeaking hinges the only proof of his existence. Once he flittered up the stairs with two smaller platters and left one in each of the two rooms. When he came back down he had a cheese cloth sack in hand. The clink of caps could be heard within it's beige constructs. This sparked her own question and she swallowed a half chewed bite to ask it.

"Do they never leave their rooms?"

Her dusty blue eyes held him intently. Little bits of food clung to the corners of her mouth making her look like an orphan who'd gotten caught stealing from the kitchen. Curiosity was as plan on her face as the crumbs she was unaware sullied her features. She took another bite as she waited for his reply.

"They do, mostly t' warsh or use the pot. Sometimes, if the price be paid, they leave fer business beyond these walls." He answered.

"Have they e'er not returned?"

"On occasion. Raiders, beasts or the waste takes 'em 'fer they make it back. Shameful loss, that."

"You don't think they just stayed away?" She cocked a brow at him. She wondered if the loss of the woman or the loss of her profits was the collateral he was referring to.

"Eh, I s'pose a few might've, but it'd be a foolish thang t' do. They got all they need h're."

"So ya jus' give it t' 'em? What 'bout them caps?" She pressed.

"Ain't ya an observant 'en." He scoffed. "I give 'em their needs an' they give the johns their's, fer caps. They keep some an' pay fer rent t' do business h'er and fer the provisions. It's a perfessional venture." He shrugged.

"What happens if they can't make rent?"

She knew the question might be a testing one, but he didn't flinch and didn't seem to mind her inquiries. Perhaps he was patient because he wanted her to stay, or perhaps it was because he longed for sober conversation. Either way he replied calmly as if they were discussing the unchanging weather.

"They find ways." He paused, eyeing her for a moment, then added, "Not like ye did fer ye'rn."

She averted her eyes, the luxury of shame suddenly available. The heat of it reddened her ears and put a blush in her cheeks. The man spoke after a time, as if he enjoyed the sight of her flushed discomfort.

"Th're are some things can only be bought with caps. The merchants can't barter fer the goods they bring wit' pleasurable experiences."

He grinned at her as if this was a jest, though he spoke the truth. She still didn't have a clear answer, but she relented. The answer was probably not one she wanted to know. Those were likely the times they were sent out to find other sources of income. Her thoughts wandered to the man himself. He sat across from her, nearly finished with his meal. Her own half of the steak was gone and she'd picked at the fruit. Fullness had not cramped her stomach in a long while and she began to feel ill from the affect. Never the less, the attempted to ignore the discomfort in order to glen more information from the situation.

"How did ya come t' own this place an' run the town?" She asked, fixing her eyes on his as they continued to glow with the rising sun.

"That be a longer tale than time." He said. "An' ye don't look t' me t' be in a state t' he'r it. Why don' ya go lie down fer a spell. I'll come up after while t' check on ye."

It sounded like a kind suggestion, but she got the feeling it wasn't. There were no commanding tones in his voice or aggressive posture. His eyes remained sharp, but gentle. She could find to evidence to support her uneasiness, but that didn't stop her from experiencing it. Perhaps she was nervous about his intention to 'check on' her. If she was still ill, another exchange of needs would not bode well. With a sigh and a stab of pain from her over-full stomach, she pushed away from the table and followed the trail in the dust that lead up the stairs to the bar keep's room. She could smell the meals provided the evening ladies from beyond the wood of their doors. The sweet and sour of fried Iguana-on-a-stick didn't help the cramp in her mid section. The key was quick to find her fingers when she searched her pocket. The door unlocked with it's usual click, then locked back behind her. The key went back into the pocket and she crossed the room to the wardrobe. Taking the pip boy from her jacket pocket, she slipped her feet out of her boots. She opened on of the dewars and carefully placed the gadget inside. Next to it she neatly folded her jacket and denims and on top of that her goggles. She wouldn't need them and it was too warm in the room for much clothing. The lack of it helped ease her stomach pains.

Easing herself onto the bed, she lay on her side with her back to the blinding sun. The rays cast her shadow on the opposite wall, a long, slender silhouette of the body she inhabited. She couldn't say she missed searching for shelter or an empty stomach. So long as she was never expecting to start earning caps, she could see herself staying here... for a while. Meandering thoughts of fantasies living in safety with no worries of food, or shelter or attacking aggressors lulled her to sleep with the help of satisfied hunger.


	6. Whore

If Jack came to look in on her she did not know it. The fact that he had without laying hand on her attributed to the better side of his character. She woke some hours latter, still satisfied, but no longer in pain for the contentment. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so refreshed. She had bathed, eaten, drank her fill of water and slept without worry of attack or theft. She took out her pip boy and clicked it on over her wrist, activating the Geiger Counter to check her radiation. She was still well under the threat of poisoning. Putting the pip boy back in the dewar, she removed her denims and dressed to go down stairs. Her boots clunked softly across the grayed wooden floor as she made her way toward the window. Leaning out over the sill, she took a look down at the town.

The pumping station was easily recognizable. The largest building on the highest ground. That put it on the rise a few buildings right of the pub. The name 'Jack' was spray painted across the face with dark red paint, clearly claiming his rights to ownership over the town's water supply. Surrounding the common court yard center of town were a few shacks made of scrap metal, wood and parts of radom objects such as train cars or plane wings. One building near the gate, marked by more red spray paint, had the words 'Sapliez'. She assumed that meant _supplies_. These people were painfully lacking in their ability to spell which was likely effected by their accent. Across from the shop was a clinic, noted by the red intersecting lines painted on the wall near the door. There seemed to be nothing else of any interest. Her eyes roamed over the roofs of the huts to the walls, and finally the the dry, dusty land beyond. The hamlet wasn't much, but the wastes were less. A small band of villagers were leaving with sacks in hand., going off the scavenge what they could from the unyielding world. Beyond them she could see a one brahmin caravan. A trader coming to do business with the citizens. Below her the doors to the bar opened and Jack walked away from the building, pulling a tee over his head as he went. She noticed a tattoo on the breadth of his shoulders before the cotton fabric obscured it from her vision. She'd only seen such things on raiders or slavers. It set her heart pounding in her chest with fearful panic, sure that he was trying to coax her into willing slavery. Bolting from the window she gathered her remaining belongings from the wardrobe. She slapped the pip boy on her arm and pulled her jacket on over it. Goggles in place she headed for the door, unlocking it with the key still in her possession. In the hall she hesitated by the closed doors. She could help them escape, tell them they didn't have to stay here as slaves.

Tentatively she opened the door nearest Jack's knocking on the warped wood as she did. The woman inside didn't bother to close her robe as she sat smoking a cigarette by a small window in the corner of the room. She didn't even look at the intruder as she continued to puff on the tobacco rolled into paper. Her bleach blonde hair was a nest around her head, her pale skin was marred with bruises where her patrons had grabbed too hard. Her legs fell open as she uncrossed them, revealing the prize of purchase to be just as battered as the rest of her. When Leona didn't speak, shocked to silence, the harlot looked toward the door. Her eyes didn't grow wide with surprise. Instead they narrowed as if angry.

"Whadda _you _want? If ye're not a payin' customer, get out!" She spat.

"I'm runnin'." Leona said abruptly. "Ye can come with me. Ya don't have t' be a slave here!"

"A_ slave_? I ain't no slave." The woman scoffed. She left herself exposed, unmindful of her nudity.

"Honey, it's betta in her' than 'tis out thar. 'Sides, whatchya runnin' fer? He ain't gonna pimp ye, girl. Naw." The hooker sneered at her, looking her over with dark hateful eyes. "He wants yer perdiness all t' himself, he does."

The tall, slender woman got up out of her splintering wicker chair, her bare feet scuffing the frayed fibers of the small rug allowed the room. Abused breasts jiggled as she walked, stopping inches from where the frightened and confused girl stood in the doorway. The stench of cigarette smoke coupled with the scent of sex and alcohol nearly made her sick. It surprised her to stillness when the harlot grabbed her by the neck and drug her into the room. The door was shut behind her and she was pinned to the wall, the whore's naked body pressed against her.

"I ain't goin' no wher'. I'd recommend ye do the same." Her voice was low and venomous. " If he's told the guards not t' let ya leave, ye won't be gettin' away easy. If ya manage it, ya better pray he sends some'ne af'er ya. If he goes 'emself, ya won't like what hap'ns when 'e catches ya. Face it, yer betta off here. Go do whateva please ya, but leave me 'n' the others alone."

"But yer bruises..." Leona started.

The woman cut her off by squeezing a little harder on her neck, then took the girls trembling lips with her own red stained ones. Her mouth tasted of ash and bile. Leona felt she might loose her breakfast. The kiss only lasted a second, but it was more than enough. The girl spat in the face of the whore, who only laughed at her.

"When they wan' it gentle they go t' Anne." The evening lady nodded to the adjoining wall to her neighbor. "When they wan' it rough they come t' Lucy. That's me if her t' dumb t' know. An' if they wan' both, it's twice the caps an' they get the twins."

"She's yer sister?" Leona asked in disgust.

"Yar, an' I love the way she licks m' cunt and sucks on dick. Half price this week only, spread the word. Gotta make rent. Now, get the fuck out 'fer I charge ya the pleasure of m' company!"

With that, Lucy roughly pulled open the door and shoved Leona through the gap to crumple onto the floor. She spun in surprise toward the door of the establishment when the deep sound of a man's voice called to her.

"I see ye've met Lucy. She's a doll, ain't she?" Jack said sarcastically. "I hope she didn't damage ya. It's what she does."

Picking herself up from the dusty floor, the girl brushed herself off and continued down the stairs. Jack greeted her by taking her face in one hand and examining the red marks on her neck where Lucy had choked her. His lips curled down in a disapproving frown. Narrowing his eyes at the marks, then letting go of her face, he studied her appearance further.

"Bit warm for the jacket. Why don't ya leave it in the wardrobe." He commented. "Is your belly feelin' better?"

"Yea. Thank ye." She answered.

"Umhum." He nodded. "What did ye and Lucy chat about?"

"She was gonna run, Jack!" Lucy shouted from her room.

Lucy had opened her door and produced herself in all her glory to rat the girl out. Leona's eyes grew wide again at the indecency of the woman's behavior, quickly averting her gaze so as not to have to see more of the woman. Jack simply deepened his frown at the tramp, exposing herself for free.

"Lucy, get back in that room 'fer I have t' sent Egor up 'ere!" He shouted.

The door slammed shut promptly after the quick scurry of feet and the flap of the robe fluttering out behind her. Leona looked back up to Jack's face. A softer glare than the one he'd given the harlot peered down at her.

"Do ya wanna leave?" He asked. "Ye can go anytime ya like. Ye'll always be welcome back by me."

Gently taking her chin with his thumb and forefinger, Jack lifted her face and pecked a kiss on her softer lips. She didn't move away. Her bright eyes searched his, looking for answers to questions she was afraid to ask. She'd made a mistake and now she was stuck. Even if the whore was wrong, he still had a tattoo. It was possible that the mark was not related to raiders or slavers, however unlikely. Though he may not currently be involved with such factions, the probability that he had been at one time or another was high. Years on his face told a story of time to have had such a history, and it might explain something of his current status. Deciding not to pursue the curiosities of her mind at that moment, she let him kiss her again. This time his lips parted, and to her bewilderment, so did hers. It was _her_ tongue that sought _his_. More butterflies fluttered around a bigger, heavier knot. In a blur of motion she was in his arms as he carried her up the stairs. She knew where they were headed. She knew what would happen there. Though her mind rebelled as strongly as it could, her body acted on it's own volition, yearning for the passion that would ravage her and send waves of ecstacy crashing over like she'd never known with another man. If someone had told her days ago that one could become addicted to orgasm she would have laughed at them. Having experienced her own of a power that was as terrifying as it was erotic, she would have agreed, if she could admit her addiction.

The orange glow of hot afternoon sun cast dark shadows across the town. The heat beat down on the west wall of the pub, warming the room to an uncomfortable degree. Naked, and slick with sweat, their bodies pleasured the other. Her wild hair matted and stuck to her skin. His rough hands and hard physique held her and crushed her beneath his fierce want. Delicate, weathered fingers pawed at him frantically, moaning and crying her pleasure at his violation. Her hips were lifted from the mattress by his thrusts, taking back the water he'd given her by means far more gratifying than the drink had been. Groans escaped his own chest, breathing the intensity he felt against the sensitive skin of her neck. Fevered kisses worried her lips and danced with her tongue. A few frenzied moments of animal instinct suspended minutes to seem as hours. The explosive finish frizzled out rational and paranoid thought alike in a white hot flash. For a time, she lay happy, void of vexes or fear, panting next to a man that she only thought of as amazing.


	7. Cook Anne

Breathing steadily on the bed, Leona stared out the window at the cloudless sky slowing relenting more of it's blueness to the oranges and golds of evening. Through the door she could hear the clank of glasses and the quiet murmur of patrons that would grow to a dull roar before the night was through. She wondered why the pub was only open after the sun had passed it's zenith. There was no profitable reason she could imagine for the schedule. She was quite sure his was the only place in town that sold food and drink. Perhaps she would venture out and see the village beyond these walls tomorrow.

Jack's voice floated up to her ears above the din, laughing at some joke one of his customers had jauntily shouted for all to hear. He had left her to help Egor with opening preparations, such as counting caps. But before he had left, he lay beside her gazing down on her with his ghostly grey eyes and tracing his fingers over the groves of her body. Her own fingers marveling at the sculpted flesh of his manliness. If she was to stay here, she needed to know much more than she did about the man and about this village. With all the drunkards below, it would make it easier for her to garner information from the loosened tongues.

Eyes accustomed to the darkness of the room, she easily found her clothes that were scattered about the room, tossed to the whim of chance in his rush to remove them. Her panties were easiest to locate, clinging to one ankle as they had not been completely striped from her. The tank had caught by the strap on the post of the head board. Her jacket lay by the door, and her denims in a puddle on the faded rug atop her dirt encrusted boots. The pip boy was still securely on her arm and her goggles were trapped on her head by a tangle of hair. This she worked patiently with her fingers until the hair was released from it's unsightly bondage. Opting to leave the pip boy and her jacket in the dewar of the wardrobe, she did her best to smooth down her wild hair. She wanted to look less like a wanderer than she had upon her arrival. She wasn't sure why this mattered to her when she had never cared before. Producing the key from her pocket, she unlocked the door. The sounds and smells expected of a bar were immediately amplified without the door to muffle them. Mostly is smelled of dust and beer with an overall odor of cooked food and dirty bodies. Laughter and clinking glasses joined the clamor coming from the kitchen. She noticed Egor was at the bar and Jack in the far corner laughing with a portly, bald man. It prompted her to wonder who was cooking. Proceeding down the stairs, so far un-noticed, she decided she would answer the question for herself. Everyone was busy with other matters, and she had not yet been seen. There was no harm in peeking in where she felt welcome to go.

The metal door creaked open. The sound was hardly audible over the noise. Inside she saw the back of a blonde woman, tall and slender. At first she thought it was Lucy, but the movements were off. This woman didn't have the careless, I fucked the devil last night air about her. The nest of hair that made Lucy appear mildly insane was carefully combed and pulled back with a ragged length of colorless scrap fabric. Leona concluded that this woman must be Anne, Lucy's twin sister. She let the door close behind her and sat on the crate that occupied the space on the floor next to it. She waited quietly for a few moments to see if Anne would turn around. When she continued to keep her back to the door as she cooked the next order, Leona thought it might be best to speak up before the meal was ready to deliver and dropped on the floor when her presence startled the woman.

"Would ye be Anne?" She asked.

Anne didn't jump or turn around. In fact she continued working as if she hadn't heard a thing. The only sign she gave that told she_ had_ heard the question was to answer it.

"Yar." She replied simply.

Her voice was much softer and kinder than her sisters. Almost apologetic in it's inflection. It made Leona think of a wounded dog in a cage. But when Anne did turn around, the face was not afraid or sullen. There was a gentle smile on the whore's stained lips and a caring light in her dark eyes. Her skin was just as pale and smooth as her sister's, but her's lacked the bruises of rough business. She wore a thin blue dress with a white apron soiled with splatters of food. The breast barely contained within, seemed to beg to be caressed and kissed. Leona found herself wondering why Jack didn't keep Anne as his own instead of employing her.

"Is ther' somethin' I can get yer?" Anne asked softly.

"No, I was jus' wonderin' who was cookin' wit' Egor et the bar an' all." Leona answered.

"I see. Well, if yer hungry help yerself. Jack's done told me yer his doxy. Jus' don't get in the way. I've got a crowd t' feed."

Anne turned back to the stove and grabbed a spatula. Moments latter the food was on a plate and she proceeded toward the door. She paused just before exiting, looking down at the pretty girl that sat on the crate. She offered a genuine smile before pushing the door open with her back to deliver the order. When she returned a few moments latter to find the girl still sitting on the crate, she was just as friendly and profusely more loquacious.

"I herd ya an' m' sista talkin' early-a." Anne mentioned casually as she prepared the next order. "She's right ya know. It's betta here than out there. Jack seems t' 'ave taken a shine t' ya. That's right special." Anne said encouragingly. "He's a betta man than most. He'll take car' of yens. If ya stay wit' 'em, ye'll find it's not such a bad life here."

"What 'bout what ya sister said concernin' the run aways?" Leona asked.

"She's a bit of a liar. Don't tell 'er I said so. She's always been a li'l rough 'round the edges. She hates ever'ne. I try to love ever'ne as mush as I can, even her. I think she's bitter 'cause Jack ne'er took a shine t' 'er like he did ye. Jack ne'er took t' nobody like he's taken t' ye." Anne practically giggled.

"Not even ye."

"Naw. 'Sides, Lucy wan't have none of it. She wanted t' be her or neither of us. But Jack's kind and let us stay. He alreada had the bar then. Had extra rooms an' no pleasurable com'ny to sell. So we took the room an' provide the entertainment." Anne said casually, flipping a patty of foul smelling meat on the stove.

"An' ya don't mind it?"

"I think she don' care one way or the other. May hap' she even likes the beatn's they pay fer. Me, I likes it when they're handsome. Any girl does."

Anne turned suddenly and got down on the floor in front of Leona. She put her hands on her knees and smiled at the girl, a light in her eyes that didn't seem sane.

"I like ya, so I'm gonna be frank. Jack's a handsome man, if ya don't already think so. I think ya do. Honestly, it's what they do in the bed I'm interested in. Now, I ne'er lain wit' Jack, an' don't 'tend t'." Anne assured her as if she cared. "But the quiet one, Egor, he might not have a tongue, but he make m' feel pleasure different than the johns do. We always do it wit' the lights off, on account of he's so damn ugly, but when he lies wit' me in the dark..." Anne trailed off, taking Leona's hands and placing them on her breasts. "It's like the whole awful world goes somewher' else and all I feel is warm and tickles, not t' mention the throbin' bit o..."

"Okay!" Leona interrupted suddenly. "I don't need t' be hearin' all that now."

"I'm sorry." Anne said, letting go of Leona's hands.

She smiled a little when Leona didn't take her palms immediately from the soft, warm flesh. Slowly Anne untied the apron and slipped her arms out of the sleeves of her dress, rolling the top half down and exposing the plumpness of her breasts.

"Do ye like 'em?" Anne almost whispered, caressing herself. "I'll let ya touch 'em any time, fer free even. 'Cause I likes ya. Ye make Jack happy."

Anne took Leona's hands once more and guided them over the swells of her breasts and her large, pink nipples. When she took her hands away, Leona's fingers slipped away from the smooth skin and settled in her lap.

"I've got t' work the kitchen." Anne said, putting her bosoms back in the dress and apron. "I'll miss ya if ye leave."

The whore tuned back to the stove and finished cooking the meal in silence. Leona decided it was a good time to leave the kitchen. She grabbed an apple off the counter and slipped out the door. Both twins, in her opinion, had a few stitches missing in the fabric of their sanity. She had no intention of ever taking Anne up on her offer. Her hesitancy had been more out of shock, and then to be polite than anything else. She felt in need of fresher air and headed for the door. Egor caught her eye on the way out. She would never look at him the same way again. He seemed to know that she knew because he gave her a wink and a strange grin as she passed the bar. The portly man was still in the corner, conversing with other villagers. She also noticed a few wastelanders sitting quietly alone at a table by the door. Jack was serving them their mugs of ale, collecting their caps as they tossed them on the table. He glanced over at her, locking eyes with her for a twinkling, before she opened the door and stepped outside.


	8. Escort

Twilight was already darkening to night. Leona had missed dusk while sitting in the kitchen talking with Anne. While she enjoyed the colors brought on by evening, night was her true love. She'd spent the first part of her life in the darkness of living underground, but then there was a ceiling. To look up into the black and know that there wasn't a sudden stop, that there was no steel panel to keep her in made her feel as if part of her was flying through that inky expanse with all the freedom she felt. The liberty had frightened her at first. No secure walls to keep out the great unknowns and certain dangers. It had become the air she breathed to be able to toss a rock as far as she could and not hit a wall. To be able to spot something far on the horizon and walk to it and discover what it was. Traveling on land that was seemingly endless and finding new things to wonder about or run from, that was the hard life she'd grown accustomed to and fallen in love with. She could still explore and scavenge is she stayed, but her rang would be limited to a days journey. Another wall, one she couldn't actually see or touch, but a wall none the less.

Leaning on the rickety railing that lined the patchy walkway over the sloping hillside, she gazed up at the stars. She stood silently, heedless of the comings and goings of the dry throated, or the stairs of men. The hill was more like a bump on the face of misery leading to the taller foothills and eventual mountains far to the west. If Leona had know at that moment that those mountains lay a weeks footing at her back, she would have left that night with whatever supplies she could carry. As it was, she did not. Thoughts milled over the idea of caging herself like the bird she sometimes dreamed she was. She wondered what kind of man Jack truly was, or how he'd come to be the almost king of this tiny kingdom. These were the ideas occupying her mind when Jack left Egor in charge of the bar while he went to satiate his curiosity.

"The nights are gettin' cooler." Jack said, leaning on the rail next to her. It creaked and bowed, but didn't give. "Ya might actually be needin' that jacket of yern soon."

Her eyes didn't leave the sky. A slight breeze pushed the untamed mane of her hair away from her face and her tank against her skin, revealing the harness of her nipples. She was only acutely

aware of his wandering eyes. Silence was allowed to settle between them. For a short time it was welcome and abided. Leona felt as though she still stood alone on the walkway, but there was a presence just on the edges of her poriferal vision like a shadow. Knowing he was there was almost a comfort. Finally she tore her eyes from the glittering expanse to gaze at him instead.

"It was somethin' I took wit' m' from the vault when I left. I... I think it was m' dad's." She confessed. "Maybe it was his dad's 'fore 'em. Like a grand dad, from when people firs' went down int' the vaults, brought it wit' 'em."

"That be mighty fine." Jack answered.

"Or maybe it was somethin' I took off a dead man. I don' rightly remember." She grinned playfully at him.

Jack grinned back and chucked a little. He seemed to appreciate her showing him a bit of humor. There was no way for him to tell which story was the lie. There was no way for her to know for sure, herself. She didn't 'rightly' remember. The body she took it from had been dead. Whether it was her father or not was a as fuzzy as the horizon on a hot day in the desert.

"Ya wanna be back out ther', don' ya?" Jack asked, nodding toward the desolate, wind blown fields beyond the walls of town.

"Yar, part o' me does." She looked back out the was he'd nodded. "An' part o' me wonders what it might be like t' stay a while longer."

She felt his hand settled over hers. Her eyes fell to the grip that gently curled it's fingers over hers, then up to the eyes that shined almost as silver as the moon that reflected in them. She wanted to believe the kindness she saw there, but the pub and the hookers, the tattoo; these things made it impossible for her to accept that his intentions were in a good place.

"Will ya tell me yer story?" She asked, holding her gaze steady on his eyes.

His open kindness seemed to withdraw in those eyes. Their light dimming slightly as he pulled back his hand, he let his fingers linger on her wrist for a fraction of a moment. His gaze flashed out to the open black, as if remembering a long ago passed just as dark. His chest filled with a deep breath and he let it out slowly. He didn't look at her again. Instead he spoke to the breeze that whispered by.

"It's a tale fer another time." He said softly. "Egor will be needin' relief."

Alone on the railing once more, Leona was only more intrigued to learn about the man's passed. Beginning with the oldest villager she could find might be a good place to start digging. The best place would be with Egor. But he wasn't talking. She couldn't very well investigate a man with him in the same room. So she couldn't go inside and inquire of the patrons. She _could _wait for the inebriated to leave for home. Doing just that, she took a seat in the shadows along the side of the tavern on an empty crate. It didn't take long for the first of many to leave, either alone or with friends, to emerge. He was an elderly man, as she had hoped, but not so old that he needed a cane to walk or so drunk he couldn't see strait. He passed right by her, using the rail to steady his path. Deciding to follow him, she left her hiding place to offer him her aid.

"Can I help ya home?" She asked coming along side him.

"Ya can if ye like." The gentleman nodded with a smile. "Why would ya want ter?"

"Call it m'good deed fer the day." She replied, returning his smile.

"I'll take the help, 'cause I don' know if I'll get ther' on m'lonesome, but I knows ye's got somethin' 'sides karma on yer mind. I'm not too blind t' see that!"

Leona didn't respond. She simply took him by the arm and helped him down the declining path. He lead her to a small shack a few homes down from the gate on the ground level, the second being where the newer homes and the saloon were located. She desperately wanted to ask the man all her questions, but felt guilty for that being her only reason to help him and being found out on the matter. When they reached the door to the simple structure, she helped him inside, fully expecting him to shut the door in her face. He started to do just that, then hesitated. His old, beady eyes started out at her as if he were having an internal argument. The side that lost let out a heavy sigh, and the side that won motioned her into his metal hut.


	9. Lies in Truth

"Go on. Have a sit."

The old man motioned to the only chair in the small space. It was made of wood just as old and grey as the floors of the bar, but it looked sturdy. Nest to the chair was a small table of the same wood, hardly large enough for a plate and cup. A bed sat across from her, metal frame and old weathered mattress. She could have touched it with her toes if she stuck out her leg. There were no notable smells that differed from the arid out doors, and it was poorly lit with a singular light bulb. Their water pumping station must also have housed the generator powered either by sun or wind. Sun most likely was the source, as it was the most plentiful and easiest to harness. Politely taking the seat as the elder gentleman settled onto his bed with a grunt she began the conversation he knew she wanted to have.

"What will ya tell me 'bout Jack?" She asked.

"Right t' the point, are ya?" The man scoffed. "Well, I be Joe, if ya wanna know! HA!"

Joe laughed at his own pun with a slap to his knee and a shake of his head. When she only smiled faintly in return his humor sullened a bit. He took a pip from his shirt pocket as well as a small bag of tobacco and a box of matches. He packed a pinch into the bowl. Carefully rolling the cheese cloth over the remainder, he replaced it in his pocket. Leona was surprised to see so much of it. Thinking little of the harlot having a cigarette, perhaps a trade for her services, seeing the old man in possession of the rarity made her wonder even more at the nature of the tiny oasis of life. Joe took a match from the box and struck the flammable end on the blue strip on the side of the tiny box he pinched between his thumb and crooked forefinger. Quickly dropping the box back in his shirt pocket with one hand, he lit his pip with the other, puffing the embers to life. The movements were as flowing and swift as the wind, well rehearsed from years of practice.

"Humm." He grumbled. "Well, I 'spose I'm not t' drunk t' tell ya what ya wanna know seems how I'm more decrepit than I am stewed. Though I dunno the beginin', see, but the town's been 'ere a while. Jack inherited it ya might say, from the lad who ran it 'fer him. Came in frum the wastes same's yer done, 'e did. Had that walkin' dead wit' 'em. 'E was ripe with un addiction t' some stuff he'd run out'a. Came 'ere lookn' fer more. 'Corse he found what 'e wanted, but didn' have the caps t' pay fer it. Old Man Johnny, man use t' own the pub, tried t' kick 'em out when 'e couldn't pay. But Jack had a surprise, 'e did, an' 'e was quick wit' it t' boot. Old Johnny what'n as old as 'is name sake, but nern to quick t' fight off a man and 'is knife. Jack 'nounced the bar t' be his an' ever'thin' else. Folks was gonna disagree, but that was _cut_ short. HA!"

The old man laughed again and slapped his knee. Leona didn't get the joke, but she was sure it wouldn't have been funny regardless. She found out she was right with the next words from Joe's wrinkled mouth.

"Humm, well... guess ya had t' been ther'." He muttered when she didn't join in his amusement. "As I was sayn', folks was gonna disagree. The ghoul wit' 'em took a stick of lizard off the dead man's plate an' took a bite. Quick as lightnin', Jack had 'em pined on the flo' and cut out 'is tongue. That be why he's mute. Things been Jack's ever since. Guess folks wanna keep the'r tongues. HA!"

"Thank ye fer yer time." Leona said politely, still not laughing. "I 'preciate yer tellin' me."

"Aw, hell. No 'ne listens t' an old man tell stories 'round h're. I 'perciate that I had 'ne ya wan'ed t' he'r! HA!"

Leona left the man to his jokes. Around her 'folks' were leaving the tavern for their own shacks and shanties. A few of them stopped to tell her their own tales of how Jack came to be the bar keep and control the town's water. A few more had stories about how Egor lost his tongue or why the twins were crazy. The only cohesion between the accounts was that Egor had stolen food and Jack had cut out his tongue. Time line, previous ownership, anything pertaining to Jack was all different from one person to the next. If there was a group of people telling the story the facts changed as they recalled the history together. One lot would have had her believe, by the end of the fabrication, that Jack had fallen from the sky in a giant tumble weed and pissed the town into existence, inhabitants and all, when he drank his first beer. Buildings springing up from the ground like flowers and the water was called forth when he spit on the dry earth. That was when she decided to head back and give up for the night.

Not a soul spoke to her when she re-entered the bar. Jack nodded to her briefly, a smile on his face from laughing at a would be jester's foolishness. Anne had apparently acquired a customer for Egor came out of the kitchen with plates of food. Leona went through the still swinging metal door, just to make sure. Finding the kitchen empty, she took a mug and filled it with water from the sink. The cool liquid was refreshing, settling heavy in her stomach. She left the mug in the sink and took a mutifruit from a basket on the counter. This she took with her up the stairs, absently taking bites on her way. Passing the faintly moaning doors, she took the key from her pocket with practiced ease to unlock the one at the end. Once inside she relocked the door and stuck the key back in her pocket. It was becoming habit so easily she didn't even realized she'd done it. She slipped her boots off by the chair then walked over the rug to the wardrobe. She freed her hair of the goggles wrapped around her head and placed them in the dewar. Shedding her denims where she stood, she left them in a puddle and made her way to the bed. The black outside the window seemed more indigo, indicating the coming dawn. Not wanting to be woken, or kept from sleep by the sun, she decided to lean the mattress against the window to block out the light. The thing was more awkward and heavy than she remembered a mattress to be, but she got the deed done. Using the wall to guild her to the door, she took a few step directly across from it until her feet found the rug. From there she crawled over to her pants, opened the dewar to retrieve her jacket. She closed the dewar to avoid hitting her head on it in the morning. Then, lumping her denims in a bundle for a pillow and spreading the jacket for a blanket, she slept on the floor.

Waking to her own circadian rhythm, she found herself some hours later on the mattress looking into a set of soft, grey eyes. Somehow the beginning of crows feet at the corners of his eyes and the worry and laugh lines made him more attractive than a younger man might have been. Exposer to the sun, wind and grit of this world may have aged him beyond his years. She had no way of really knowing with out asking if he was the age he appeared. She couldn't judge herself. She wasn't sure of her own number of years. Such a thing was likely just as malleable a concept for Jack.

In those first few moments of waking she didn't remember not falling asleep on the mattress. Then she noticed the two scraps of fabric nailed over the window. Blinking the sleep away she focused on Jack's face. He wasn't grinning, but he seemed content. She wondered what her face told him when her eyes grew a little wider. The memories of blocking the window and bedding on the floor recalled themselves as she neared fuller wakefulness. She must have been thoroughly exhausted to not hear the hammering of nails or feel her body being moved. If she had been in the wastes, her lack of awareness could have cost her more than she wanted to entertain with thought. Greatly un-nerved by her ease of comfort with this place and this man shook her to her core. If she left now, though it had only been a few days, she wondered if she could trust her instincts to snap back in the wild. While looking into eyes like the moon, she resigned herself to leaving that night while Jack tended to the thirsty and hungry.

"I would'a told ya what ya wanted t' know." Jack said coolly, his features still warm and comforting. "But I'm curious what the drunken tongue has wagged of me."

Leona wasn't sure how to respond. She hadn't expected him to remain privy to ignorance of her venture. Though she had dared to hope he would. There was not much to tell him. Lies and fantasies of those that lived to sleep even while waking. So she told him as much.

"Only that of which a loosened tongue is likely t' tell when the mind is half dreaming." She said in almost a whisper.

"Thank ye for the curtains." She added just as softly. Her gratitude gave him cause to grin.

"I didn' mind it. Should'a been done long ago." He paused, gaze unfaltering, then spoke with a tone to match his face. "I've the time if ya wanna h're truth from one who lived it. But if I tell ya, I'll need yer word that ye not share it."

"I give it." She promised.

"Don' open the box in the attic if yer not meanin' t' stay." He warned.

He tapped a finger to his forehead with he said 'attic' to clarify he meant his memories and his passed. Alarm rose up in her mind like a fire from embers thought dying. She could lie and say she would stay to satisfy her curiosity. Lucy's words came back to her. Anne had called her sister a lier, but Anne wasn't all there. Maybe Lucy wasn't either, but she hit closer to the mark. She could run, and he might give chase, but she'd outwitted those that sought her before. He could be no different. The look in his eye that glinted just below the surface told her that her answer was decided for her, she need only speak it.

"I'll stay."


	10. A Boy

**It took me a few days to decide how I wanted to do this; as a conversation or as a flash back. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to let you into Jack's mind not just what he's telling her. So I hope my amalgamation of the two satisfies and entices. Let me know if there's something I miss.**

**note: conversation in regular text, unspoken memory in italics**

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Jack sighed deeply, not moving from where he lay next to her. His eyes darkend with the thought of memory. He seemed to consider her for sometime before he spoke. She wondered what was in his past that the town did not know or suspect that he wished to hide. The fact that he wasn't overly protective of concealing his tattoo coupled with his desire for her secrecy confused her as much as it intrigued her. She waited patiently for him to tell the tale. Allowed his fingers to stroke the curves and grooves of her flesh. At times he stopped talking as if captured in a long forgotten memory. These are the times his eyes went dim as he stared at his finger tips on her skin, or the pout her lip, or a patch of freckles. When his eyes drift up to hers she can almost see him come back from his past, bringing pieces with him to be shared with her like old treasures of a child. Or dead creatures that were crushed by the weight of pain. These he dropped at her feet to be poked with a stick, then he moved on to the next trinket. She kept her calm even as her alarm rose and fell. She offered a comforting hand when he seemed in pain. She let him take her body when he wanted an escape. Her curiosity of him only grew the more she learned of the man called Jack.

* * *

"It's t'long a tale t'start from the beginin'. Th'er's not much of a childhood t'tell, b'sides. But I can give ya the innerestin' bits. When I was jus' a bean my 'rents was young. When I was a boy they was dead. Slavers came by 'em one night. Ma and Pa fought 'em t'pertect me, but they was out gunned. 'Least, that's what the men who raised me up told me. 'Spose the truth don' matter nurn now. I wern't the only kid they'd taken, but I's one o'the few they kep fer themselves. Not fer screwin' though. They had othern's fer that."

The memory flashed through his mind of one night he remembers like a dream, or a nightmare, with fog around the edges of his vision and a eerie absence of wind or breath. It's not the first time he'd seen such a thing happen, but it's the first he remembers.

_The camp fire burns with an oily light, though the wood that's used is dry. Broken pieces of a wooden bed, from the looks of it. Probably happened when a few too many tried to pile on, or maybe someone was thrown onto it hard enough to strain the weakened supports. It doesn't matter. Not to him. It's not_ him _that it's getting done to._ He's _not the one that has to endure it. So he doesn't interfere. He watches in silence from the shadows, hoping not to be noticed. _

_His chores are done. The other children have been locked away behind the gated fence where they sleep on mounds of hay. The breeze carries the stench of their defecation from the far corner to where he lays on his mattress. He has his own hut outside the cage, but he's chained by the ankle to a pipe that runs into the ground like a thumb and forefinger of steel. This doesn't matter either, because his belly is fuller than the ones in the cage or even of the young girl who's older than he by the fire. She begs the men not to proceed, to leave her be and lock her way with the others. She shouts her protests then pleads for them to stop. He can clearly see the smear of blood on her thigh and on on the man that took her. The redness of it seems almost orange in the glow of the fire. He can hear her crying and the tears in his own eyes wash away the dirt and grim on his face as they trail over his skin to wet the mattress. He feels sorry for her, and hates himself for not being able to save her. _

_When he is older the girl is gone. Sold long ago for guns or food. Maybe clean water. It doesn't matter. She is gone and it wasn't _him. _She had deserved it. Asked for it. Disobeying the slavers or not performing her duties well enough or fast enough. It was her own fault they took her like they did. She was young and pretty. She didn't try hard enough to not be noticed. She looked them in the eye when they spoke to her or didn't when she should have. It had to be her fault, because if it wasn't then it could happen to _him.

"Me they kep fer other things. I helped in the kitchen or cleaned and fixed the guns. They learned me t'do other things, like how t'shoot the guns and hit what I was aimed et. Why they didn' sell me or why they learned me I dunno. I weren't spared the beatin's if I done somet'in' wrong, but I's probly the only 'ne t'ever get a reward fer doin' good. Gave me cleaner water and betta food, even beer sometimes. Fist time they gave m' a girl fer the night they said it was 'cause I was old 'nough t'become a man."

_The girl is younger than he is, even younger than the girl who is gone. 'A fresh catch', the slavers tell him as they shove her into his arms like she's an extra blanket. She looks up at him, afraid of him, but more afraid of the other men. He grins down at her. He notices her eyes are darker than any eyes he's seen before and shining with tears. He thanks the men and asks to take her to his hut. The men laugh at him for being shy and allow him the privacy of the doorless hut. They gather around the fire to watch what they can see. _

_He takes her to his hut and she starts to pull away, knowing what is about to happen. But she also knows her only escape will be to worse ends, so she goes willingly into the shadows with him. He pushes the mattress as far into the dark as he can. They don't chain him up anymore, but the cuff is still there wrapped around the pipe. He has the key now. They gave it to him with the girl. She was_ his _slave now. A small part of him is still the little boy who wanted to help, but a bigger part of him is the boy who didn't care. He has lived with the slavers too long and doesn't care about other living things very much any more. He wants his birthday present and he intends to open it. _

_Her nails are broken and jagged, so he puts her writs together and cuffs her to the pipe. She's much weaker than he is, so though she is fighting with all her strength, he feels only the slightest resistance. This make him think she wants him. She's petite enough that both her wrists fit in one cuff. He closes the other around the chain so she can't get away, just in case she tries. Her dress buttons down the front and he makes quick work of them. She's already bruised from the capture. He can see the darkened areas on her ribs in the flickering light from the campfire. She stiffens at his touch as he grabs at one of her small breasts. Her knees are locked tight as his fingers trail down her thighs. She pleads with him not to do this, but he ignores her. He easily pushes her legs open and slips between them. Her feeble struggle is like a gentle urging. The cotton of her panty rips away easily in his fist. The pink folds that are exposed quiver with fear like the rest of her body. It excites him that she's afraid of him. He has spent so much of his life afraid of the men, to be feared makes him feel powerful. _

_At first he just touches the place he will go. He is curious to feel it with his fingers, to see what it feels like, what it looks like on the inside. Then he wants to taste her before her flower is plucked. He pushes her legs wider to slide his tongue in all the places of her sex. Her uncontrollable whimpering moan pushes his arousal to stiffness that cries to be released from his denims. He obliges this demand and unbuttons his fly. When the girl sees his manhood she cries out and struggles to get free, but it is too late. He pushes himself inside her, heedless of her pleasure or pain. When he feels the tightness and the pressure then sees the blood, his mind goes numb and his body takes it's pleasure. _

_Beneath him she moans and cries, but the cries are tears and her moans are pleads for him to stop. She tells him of the pain but he doesn't listen and silences the words that try to speak to the boy within with rough kisses and choking hands. He can hear the men goading him on by the fire and their praise means more to him than her tears or begging. When he's had his fill he sleeps next to her as if she loved him. In the morning the men who called him Boy now call him Jack because of they way he 'jack knifed' the girl. He keeps her like he was kept, only takes her whenever he feels the need. He calls her foul names, though she'd told him her name is Lucy. When she does, he beats her and rapes her. If she fights him he threatens to let the other men have at her, so she accepts him. He feels powerful._

"I'd been a man fer 'bout two months, I guess, when they taught m' how to sell. What t'look fer when I was 'shoppin'. Af'er them two months they took me on my first run fer merchandise. 'T what'n a town or anythin' go grand. Jus' some folk that escaped the last run. Scout found 'em hidin' in an old house what survived the years perddy good. Still had all the wall in tac' an' a roof wit' no holes. Mos' the adult's tried to fight. They died. The othern's surrendered. Two men an' a woman. Had a little girl wit' 'em. She looked so much like the girl the slavers gamme, they gamme her too fer a job well done on the firs' try. Made me one of 'em af'er that."

_The sun rose latter that day, a little cooler than it had been. The season is turning. Jack is atop his slave, working her like a bull moose in rut. He chokes her so he can hear the wet slap of himself against her. Feet stop outside his door, kicking up dust. Scout calls in at him without peeking in. Jack and Scout have become friends of a sort. Jack let's Scout borrow Lucy from time to time for favors, benefits slavers have that slaves don't, like a full meal and not just the scraps. _

_Jack is still a slave, though he's being brought up to be a slaver. When he can earn his place among them he'll get a room in the main house and the full meal he barters for. Scout tells Jack he's going with them on a run. It's his first one so he's excited. His release comes earlier than usual and he fills his slave with his seed. It wasn't the first time, but the girl hadn't had her first bleed yet. He leaves her laying there, exposed and panting with tears running down her cheeks. _

_Buttoning up his pants as he leaves his hut. All he is thinking about is his first kill, his first capture. If he does well enough maybe he won't have to share his toy for food. He doesn't like to share her, even though he cares nothing for her. He rubs his balls through his denims because her juices are dripping down and it's uncomfortably tickling him. He decides that if his hunt goes poorly he'll beat her for the distraction of making him wet. He should do it anyway just because she was enjoying it too much. He tell Scout what he's going to do and why because Scout thinks it's funny when Jack tells him those things, but only if he really does them. Scout tells him to put his 'pud' in the other hole. That she won't like that as much and it'll teach her a lesson, but that Jack will like it plenty. Jack asks Scout if he's ever done that with her. Scout says 'no', 'cause he hasn't. He tells Jack that he's his friend and he wouldn't do that to the only friend he's ever had. This makes Jack feel something when he hasn't felt anything besides hate and bitterness for years. He's not sure he likes the way the new emotion feels. _

_They go inside the armory shed to get their guns. Most of the other men are already there. When they leave they do so on foot. Scout and Tracker lead the way. The day stays tolerable through the morning and into the after noon with no luck, but no trouble either. Then Scout sees a house. Tracker says the tracks are fresh. Maybe the people inside are those that escaped the run a couple months ago, the one where they picked up Jack's pet. This gets the slavers excited, but they won't tell Jack why. The house is largely in tact, so the exits are limited. Three men station themselves outside the doors and one for each window on the ground floor. There's no sound in the house and no one fired at them upon approach. Likely the people inside were sleeping and traveling at night. They send Jack in first, because if he dies they only loose a slave, not a man. That's how he thinks they see him until he makes his first capture. _

_Jack goes in and the living room still has furniture in it. It won't when they leave. Or they'll make it an outpost. He wonders if they'll transfer him here. Then he can have his own room. Jack checks the kitchen, but there's no food. He does find some jet. Scout is a jet user, so he takes it to barer with. Then he goes up the stairs as quietly as he can. One of the steps creaks, but no one stirs. There are two rooms up stairs, and now the slavers have come into the house because they haven't heard gun shots or screams yet. Gunner and Blade join him at the top of the stairs. He sees what they were excited about. His pet has a twin sister. He wants her immediately, like a pair of diamond earrings, he thinks it will give him status. _

_Then the adults wake up and they have guns. Jack sees the flash of metal before the others do and shoots them in the head at point blank with his pistol. They don't die right away, struggling to live to protect what he imagines is their daughter because the mother looks like them. The girl is scared and screaming. He slaps her, hard, and binds her hands with cord while watching the light go out from her mother's eyes. Too bad she had a gun. Too bad he had to shoot her. He smiles knowing he had been quicker on the draw than the more experienced men. He smiles because he's made his first kill and his first capture. He feels powerful. _

_There is one male down the hall, but he's caught off guard by the gun shots and easily captured. Jack _tells _the slavers he's keeping the girl. Instead of beating him for insubordination they laugh at his gall. Not only is he allowed to keep the girl, but he gets his own room in the main house. He's one of them now. Equal. A slaver_,_ powerful. _

_The sisters are both happy and sad to see each other. He makes Lucy watch him take her sister, chained to the head board as she sits on the floor. He's much kinder to the girl he captured himself. Asks her what her name is. Her lips tremble when she tries to answer. She tries to say Anna Belle, but he doesn't want to say that much when he talks to her. So he calls her Anne. _

_He's not thinking about how Anne or Lucy feels. He's only thinking about how happy he is to no longer be a slave. He is focused on how tight and wet the virgin feels. He likes that she's not crying like her sister does. She did at first, but now she is moaning and calling him master. He dosen't like that. It reminds him of being a slave. So he tells her his name. When she climaxes she moans his name and he feels powerful. His sex is long and slow, hard and firm. He's more gentle with her, but unyielding. When he knows he is going to release he does it in Lucy's mouth and makes her swallow at point of gun. He tells her that her sister's body is too perfect to risk stretching it out with a baby and her face is too beautiful to put his dick in it, so she must do it because she's a filthy whore. He keeps them chained up, but he feeds Anne better than he feeds Lucy. Her meals come in hot, white streams down her throat up to six times a day. He likes that she they are at his mercy. He likes that they fear him. He is not a slave anymore, and he feels powerful._

_

* * *

_

"What happened to those girls?" Leona interrupted, but he didn't seem to mind.

"I reckon they're doin' alright fer themselves." He answered. A kind grin spreads over his face.

Leona wondered just where he went when his gaze internalized and what he was thinking when he came back. The story he told her made her feel empathy for him. Raised as a slave only to become one who made other's slaves. But he'd kept them, and that made him just as much a monster. He was neither slave nor slaver now. Something must have happened to cause the change. Though slaving may have been the means with which he bought the tavern. Laying there next to a man who became more complicated the more she knew of him, she couldn't help but wonder if the two girls who looked alike were still with him or if he just happened upon twins again. The man had become what he'd feared. Revealing such a terrible past, she thought it should have bothered him more. She wondered if she ought to run after he fell into sleep. Vitals or no, she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with his tale and his prodding fingers and absent stairs.


	11. Tattoo

Merely mortal, was he, and a slaver once a slave. Looking at him now, she might not have known if she hadn't seen the mark and he had never told her. Pity mingled with disgust and an odd sense of needed to stay kept her as the light filtering through the makeshift curtains dimmed into late afternoon. He would be required to tend to his business soon. Though, she supposed that Egor would take the reigns for a night if and when it became clear that Jack would not be coming out of his room. She wanted to know more, though it would not benefit her once she left this place. Previously afraid to ask the question, Leona posed it now to the man who seemed to drift in and out of reality.

"When did you get the tattoo?"

"I'd say 'bout a month af'ter that first run. B'then I'd earned it through hard work 'stead o'amusement. Me an' Scout brought in the mos' merchandise an' the bes'. I guess they figured I deserved it. T'was a surprise, ya might say."

"Can I look at it?" Leona asked with an innocent curiosity.

Jack left the bed and shuffled across the floor to the wardrobe. He seemed to be lest agile, even sluggish. She wondered if it was for lack of sleep or food and water. He opened the bottom dewar and brought out the candle and matches. The fibers of the rug mad soft swishing sounds as he made his way slowly back to the bed, handing her the candle and match box. He crawled over her legs to his spot on the bed beside her. He was exhausted, though he'd done very little physical work that day. She lay the candle next to her leg so she could find it again quickly. Sliding the cover of the match box open, she took out a stick and struck it against the rough strip along the side. The yellow flame sparked to life at the end of the short splinter of wood. She dropped the closed box to her lap and picked up the pale beige candle with her other hand. The dry wick caught easily and she put out the match on her tongue. The familiar quick sting of heat and the hissing death of the flame reminded her of nights alone under the stars, listening for any threat that may wanter near. She missed the open air, but not the dangers. Glancing down at the man next to her she wondered if he was not simply a different breed of danger.

Jack lay on his stomach so she could get a good look at the mark on his back. She held the candle over him, mindful not to let the wax drip onto his skin. But the flickering shadow made the image difficult to make out. Leona resolved to straddle him and hold the flame as close as she dared. He grunted a little when she executed her plan. His skin was dry and cool to the touch under her nudity. Feeling his back muscles beneath her sensitive folds unexpectedly excited her. Ignoring her body's foolishness she leaned in over the ink that marred his flesh.

Whatever the slavers had used for ink, the needle had been of quality and the artist; a master of shadows. Precise lines and detailing painted a stunning scene with graceful curls and sways along the edges and down his back in simple black. The design was much larger than she'd thought it to be, remembering the brief flash of skin she'd seen from the window. As elegant as the framing was, and how seamlessly the lines became part of the picture, they did not keep it from masculinity or ferociousness. A hairy Deathclaw hunched over a fresh kill, a man and a woman, their bodies torn to shreds. In it's claws the beast gripped their hearts. A bite of the flesh torn from one of the organs hung out of the Deathclaw's mouth. Blood dripped from it's chin and a string of saliva draped from the morsel to the gore in it's hand. It's face was turned upward to a cold sun, looking back over it's shoulder at the disconsolate wilderness surrounding it with apprehensive, wary eyes.

"Was this a mark o'yer clan?" Leona asked, nearly breathless and shaken.

"Naw, nothin' so uniferm as that. Ever'ne had their own special t' 'em. Scout had 'ne, t'was a ferret wit' sharp eyes an' a rabid look 'bout it. Ne'er really cared much fer it. Rodents ain't good fer much, 'cept stew if yer in a pinch. Betta than roach though!" He replied, teasing.

His deep chuckle vibrated through her, tingling the flesh that pressed moist and naked on his thoracolumbar fascia. Fingers from her free hand traced the intricate framing lines, admiring the flowing grace that graced his skin.

"Why d'ya think they picked this fer ya?" Leona asked.

She was beginning to fear the truth of the more vague areas of his story. Ferrets naturally sought out food and shelter for themselves and their families, so a tattoo of one for a man called Scout made sense. Deathclaws were ferocious killers, hunters and scavengers. They were quick and brutal, roaming the wasteland in packs. They rarely wondered alone as his tattoo depicted.

"I cain't tell ya. Don' really know fer shur." He answered.

* * *

Straddled across his lower back, Jack could feel the smooth skin of her thighs and the moistness between them pressed against him. Were they not verbally in the middle of his life he may have rolled over to have her. As it was, he lay contently on his stomach while enjoying her light touch tracing the lines on his back and shoulders. Suddenly there was a shock of liquid heat that stuck to his skin, burning like fire. Some part of him knew it was wax from the candle. He faintly heard the girl apologize and wipe away the hot wax with her own fingers. However, his mind had already returned to the night he received the mark that was so tenderly being caressed by a delicate touch.

"It's okay..." He says, but he's not really talking to Leona. Only repeating what he was told that dark hour.

_Rough, strong hands drag him from his bed. He's still sleeping when the words float into his dreams and rip him to the darkness of the conscious world. _

'_It's okay! It's okay!' a man tells him, forcing him down the steps by candle light and mischievous grins on the other men's faces. _

_He's afraid they're going to use or take his pets, or worse; put him back in the hut, or maybe the cage. They've put a wooden snaffle bit in his mouth like he's a horse and secured it around his head with rope. His hands are cuffed and he starts to panic. _

'_It's okay!' the voice assures him in a whisper at his ear. 'It's Scout, man. It's okay! Yer gonna get yer tat t'night! Don' worry 'bout yer pets. Boss told 'em not t'touch 'em.' _

_Hearing this, Jack is excited, and afraid. He still worries about his girls. He knows these men well enough to know they can't be trusted with what is chained to his bed. He struggles against the hands that grip him and push him into a room with a bright light centered over a strange chair, fashioned specifically for tattooing the back of a man. They force him onto the torn and cracked padding of the old piece of furniture and hold him down while he's chained to it. Then a taller, stronger man steps up from the shadows. It's Boss, the head slaver, the man in charge. He's rarely seen out of his office and Jack stops his struggle and does his best to lower his head in respect. He hears the deep chested laugh of Boss and his heart pounds in his chest. Beside him a wooden stool is set on the floor and the sound of a generator clicking on hums endlessly in his ears. _

'_What ya wan' me t'put on 'em, Boss?" Picture Boy asks from the stool, pulling up the rolling tray of supplies. _

'_Deathclaw... and a reminder of what freed him from his bondage.' The deep voice of Boss echos through the room._

_Picture Boy doesn't answer. Simply picking up the altered psycho needle and delivery system, the artist goes to work on him, drilling freestyle into his flesh. The ink is made of anything they could find that was black, ground into powder and mixed with water. _If _Jack survives, he'll rise in the rank above the new recruits. Right now he is more worried about Picture Boy's talent and skill, and sobriety, than what is going to be carved into him. Then he feels the p_ain. It's unlike _anything he's ever felt, like fire and glass being ground into his flesh repeatedly for hours. But he doesn't cry, or groan. He can't. Not in front of the men. Not in front of Boss. They might kill him if he does. So he grits his teeth and bares down on the wood in silence. _

_Blood seeps up from the tiny holes in his skin to color his back in a red slick. Picture Boy pours vodka over him to sterilize the miniscule wounds and hopefully prevent infection. The alcohol stings and worsens the pain. After a while the pain dulls as endorphins release in his brain. The feeling is almost as euphoric as his experience with jet. Pain almost turns to pleasure, except where the needle hit's bone as it passes over his spine or shoulder blades. _

_Picture boy finishes in what seems like days latter, but is only a few hours. The light of dawn peeks over the horizon. It's warm, feminine colors brighten the sky framed by a window he can see from his place on the parlor chair. He's so exhausted from lack of sleep and pain that he believes for a moment that he's looking through a window to heaven. The the vodka cleanses his wounds and jars him to reality with fresh agony. _

_Boss nods his approval after a brief glance at his back and leaves the building. Jack is released and shown to a mirror to look at the physical expression of their acceptance of him. What he sees is beautiful and terrible. Realizing that it was how they saw him, how _Boss_ saw him, gave him pride. Gave him a feeling of power. _

_Given a bottle of vodka for his new tattoo, he head up the stairs to his room and his bed. He hears sounds inside he knows all too well. Adrenaline, already coursing through his veins, pushes him into a rage when he opens the door to find what he knew would happen. Two men, Gunner and Blade, the two that should have known better the most, were having their way with his slaves. He's going to kill them, but not because he loves the women, rather it's because they're his property and they were being used without his permission._

_Jack sees red and runs at them, catching them off guard when he entered the room. He head butts Gunner off of Anne hard enough to send him to the floor with blood pouring from his temple. The other man volunteers his leave of Lucy out of shock at Jacks powerful aggression. Jack doesn't taunt them or ask questions. He doesn't make threats. He rolls Gunner over onto his back, groaning on the floor and crushes his throat with repeated stomps with his bare heel. The gurgling sounds of Gunner gasping for breath through the blood flooding his airways is a faint annoyance in the background of Jack's mind. _

_Blade tries to flee, but Jack is faster, more spry than the older, fatter slaver. Jack trips the rapist with a kick to the back. Blade falls to the floor, his momentum sends him skidding a couple meters from where he fell. His chin is skinned and splinters are wedged deep into his skin. Jack grabs the man by the hair with his free hand and drags him across the floor screaming 'No, Jack! Don'! I's sorry!' But Jack doesn't care. He drops Blade's head by the door frame, then slams the door on his face until blood pours from his nose. When he's satisfied with the yelps of pain, he kicks him in his exposed groin until it bleeds just as bad. _

_Behind him the gurgling has stopped. He leaves Blade to check on Gunner. He's not dead, but close. He tells Lucy to bite off the dying man's 'pecker'. She does it happily, spitting the removed flesh on Gunner's face. The last sputtering screams that usher from Gunner's blood filled mouth remind him of a chicken clucking as it runs from the cook. __Jack goes back to finish off Blade, who is trying to crawl away. He kicks him until he rolls into the open hall, then finally over the edge of the rail-less walkway to the bare floor below. The fall should not have been a fatal one, but Blade's head hits the lip of the pool table below and the impact snaps his neck. _

_Everyone who witnessed his marking is gathered below, staring up at him in silence and awe at what he has just done. There are many more of them than him, but he hardly notices the crowd. He simply looks down at the body, primal rage and triumph on his features. Tired, he goes to bed leaving the bodies where they lay until morning. Comrades or not, Gunner and Blade are meat and the community eats well that day._

_Over the next week, Anne tends to his back, cleaning it with the vodka. The scars heal perfectly. He rewards her for her loyalty by removing her cuffs. He expects her to run away, but she never does.  
_


	12. Running

The curtains are dark. The sun has left the sky for the day, surrendering the world to darkness. Jack tied back the curtains to let in the moon shine in. The silvery light beamed onto the floor and seemed to illuminate the room in a soft glow. Jack seems as a ghost as he glanced down at the villagers coming to dinner. The murmur of conversation grew louder as more people filed in. Egor had brought them a plate of fruit. Jack had accepted the food, only opening the door wide enough to allow the plate to pass between the jam and the knob. She had barely heard the instructions he gave his servant, informing him that tavern duties would be his that night. Egor's face was blocked by the door, but she heard a confirming grunt and saw Jack hand the ghoul a mutifruit from the plate. She wondered if the offering was a thanks or sorts. She wanted to think it was, that the man Jack had been was kinder now by some experience of his youth he had yet to tell her. She wanted to believe he was the good man, the way he seemed to want her to see him.

Lying next to him with the plate of fruit between them, she was uncertain of what to believe. There was no doubt that what he told her was truth, in a fashion. It was _his _truth. If there were lies in it, she could not have pointed them out, but she felt something was missing. Thus far he had given her no reason for her own to mistrust him, so she took him at his word with a grain of sand. His tale was nearly finished, or would be by dawn. Surely he would sleep then, as would the rest of the household and the town below. That would be her chance to escape, if she truly was his captive, if she truly intended to leave. She finished the thought when she finished the apple, wondering just where he managed to obtain fresh fruit in the middle of what was essentially a desert.

"I 'spose ya wanna know how I ended up h're an' why I'm not a slaver any m're." Jack said casually, un-eaten apple in hand.

"I 'spose I do." She answered simply.

It was really the only question left to give her any insight into he this man was. Maybe, within that tale, she would find the reason she cared. Again, she waited patently. Her bright eyes focused on the silvery ones across from her in the dark. The matches and the candle lay on the floor, snuffed out when Egor arrived at the door with food. The moon was bright enough, and still low to the horizon, to filter in and halo around his form and spill onto hers. The sweet scents of the fruit was tainted by the dust. She heard his heavy sigh, advising of the story to come that he was burdened to share. His callous hands kept to the food as he began the end of his narrative.

"The simple accountin' is that I left. Things went bad, an' I left. Lossa death. Scout come wit' me, but he din' make it. He died wit' a bullet in 'is head. I foun' this town a-wonderin' out th're." He nodded behind him to the open window, indicating the wasteland. "Kind folks that they be, they lemme in, not knowin' wh're I come from or what I been. Tavern was already h'er. Egor was too. Ran the bar e'en then. Man who owned it took me unner his wing, so t'speak. Learned me the ropes an' I done a job fer the needs of livin'. Gamme a room. I had t'share, but it what'en a vex. The day 'e died 'e gamme the place. Said I earned it, an' I was like a son t'em. Ya might say I inheri'ed it. Not much t'tell af'er that. I took over. Folks had already accepted me as 'ne o'their own. Not much of a step t'accep' me as the heir to the bar."

"Did Egor talk then?" She asked, inquiring politely about the ghoul's tongue.

"I cain't tell ya. Don' 'member him e'er talkin' much. Cain't tell ya how 'e lost it either. May hap' 'e got catched takin' what din' belong t'em. May hap' 'e told the wrong man a lie once. He ain't ne'er been able t'tell me!"

The laugh that rolled rumbling through the air like a growl of a bear, hit her as a puff of apple scented wind. She had to admit that the joke had been cleaver, and she rewarded him with a smile. It would take more than dark humor to pull a genuine laugh from her. His chuckles gradually subsided, and his eyes met hers once more. They dimmed again, taking him back to the memory of those years he'd summoned for her. By the look in those eyes and the sternness of his face, she could only assume the thoughts he had were no less dark than the night itself. When he went wherever he kept his secrets locked inside his mind, she lay on the mattress and planned her escape.

* * *

_He wakes in his room with the warm body of Anne beside him. He doesn't hear the usual smacking of balls rolling across the pool table as they're hit with the stick or the low murmur of idle conversation. He thinks he is either early or late and left behind. He doubts the team would leave him behind. He always brings in the most profitable catch. Slowly he leaves the bed, sore from the run the day before. He brought in three children and their parents that day. Women and children always sell for the most. Men were trouble, especially if they had families. A buyer was scheduled to arrive later that afternoon to take the male off their hands. _

_Jack dresses in his traditional denims and tee to go assure himself that everything is well. He checks his boots by the door for spiders before pushing his feet inside. Only a week before a man called Lucky died of a spider bite on his foot. Jack had laughed, thinking it ironic on account of the name. But that was then. Today he doesn't want to be the one with the bite on his foot. _

_The door opens with a aged creaking. There's no one in the common room. It's as empty as it was full when he killed Blade on the pool table. The blood stains are still clearly visible on the pool table where he hit and the wood floor where he finally lay. Jack leaves the room, not looking back. He has a lock on his door now, and he secures it behind him. Putting the key back in his pocket, he ventures down the warped, creaky stairs. His boots echo loudly in his ears as he crosses the common room. The daylight from outside makes a bright square on the floor like another doorway to some other world. He sees no one in the courtyard from where he is, but he can hear voices, arguing voices. He can't understand what they're saying, though he strains to listen. He cautiously nears the open doorway as the arguing turns to shouting. One of the men is Boss. Jack recognizes his booming voice over the others. He's been challenged for power by a man called Bull. _

_Jack leaves the main house, the dust rising in a cloud around his footsteps as he races over to the divided crowd, each backing their man. He's angry that no one woke him for the vote, but there's no point in making a fuss about it. Spotting Scout waving to him from the edge of the crowd backing Boss. He runs over to him, steel resolve hardening his face. Before Scout can explain the situation a gun shot is heard. The repercussive sound rolls across the compound and echos against the clear morning sky. Men are shouting 'They shot Boss!' and 'Kill them!'. He doesn't panic, but he isn't going to stick around for the blood bath that is rushing to become. He grabs his angry and confused friend by the arm and they run to the main house. Scout keeps asking him what he's going to do, but Jack doesn't answer. He is working out a plan as he runs up the stairs to grab the girls. He doesn't love them, but they don't deserve to die. Not chained to a bed or by crazed men out for blood, and he's not about to loose his most valuable property be turned to dust either. _

_They are both already awake and confused as he tosses them tunic style dresses to wear from his wardrobe. They ask him about the shouting and the gun fire, but he only tells them that they have to go and not to dally about as he unshackles Lucy from the bed leg. If she runs, as he suspected she would her first opportunity, then he'll shot her himself. He makes sure to tell her so at the point of a gun he had stashed under the mattress. Scout is still waiting, cowering behind the pool table when Jack descends the stairs, his pets in tow. _

'_Let's go!' Jack orders Scout, but doesn't wait for him to follow._

_The chaos outside is their cover from notice. He leads his girls and his friend to the armory. Everything on the shelves has been taken, but Jack knows there's more. A hidden trap door in the floor of the back room takes them to a tunnel. He knows it won't stay secret for long. The man who he learned of it from was dead, but others would explore looking for loot or fodder and find it. The underground bunker holds enough weapons and ammo to equip a small army. Boss had told him that the compound used to be a military outpost before the bombs fell. All the green wooden boxes with rifles and shot guns inside are marked with the letters U.S. Boss had taught him a little about how to read after he was marked. It makes little sense to him that the military would have put the word 'us' on the boxes, but it doesn't matter. He gives Lucy and Anne each a fully loaded .357 revolver and hopes they can figure it out. There's no time to teach them. Scout picks a hunting rifle and a revolver of his own. Jack takes a submachine gun, shoving his N99 10mm pistol in his pant waist. He loads up a backpack full of ammo. He starts to instruct Scout to grab a pack full of *M.C.I.'s and water, but Scout is a step ahead of him. It is the first time he's smiled in weeks. Further down the hall he finds the door that will take them up into Bosses office. There are likely to be men looting it's spaces for whatever they may find and he readies his gun. _

_The trap door under Bosses desk wasn't often used. The dirt that has settled over it rains down on Scout and the girls as Jack stains to lift it open. The hatch complains quietly as he emerges from it's hidden hole. Scout is quick to follow and closes the door on the girls until they ensure the room is empty or dead. Jack jumps up from cover, ready to fire, but no one is in the room. No one is even trying to get in, at least, not yet. The shouting and gunfire he hears from the other side of the walls lets him know the battle is making it's way to the entrance the way a fresh puddle spreads out over the low areas of the floor. _

'_Get the girls.' He tells Scout, who hasn't spoken a word sense leaving the main house. 'We's gonna foller 'em t'the gates and slip out 'mongst the commotion.'_

'_Are ye crazy?' Scout asks him, the gun is shaking in his unsteady hands._

'_Naw, an' ye betta get a grip or ya gonna get us killt.' Jack answers and takes aim at the door, just in case._

_Anne and Lucy keep their peace. He's taught them better than to open their mouths when they shouldn't. Jack unlocks the bolt that holds the door shut and peeks out through a small crack. He can hear the shouting and the dieing, but it's not on their doorstep. The violence has passed them. He moves quickly and the others follow him like frightened children. Scout had shot plenty in his time, but never one of his own and never to kill. Merchandise was worth more wounded than dead. Jack knows his friend well enough to know he might not be able to shoot a fellow slaver if the need arises, but he needs him as an extra gun until they can get passed the front gates. After that, it will depend wholly on his performance up to that point. _

_Their way to the front gate is unimpeded, but he never let's down his guard. His eyes are ever watchful and his finger ever ready on the trigger. The sounds of chaos are louder as they close in on th front gates. Jack leads his followers into the shrinking shadows as noon draws nigh. He can see the gates and the battle that is moving slowly passed it to the new recruits barracks. The gate guards are dead, beaten or trampled to death, caught in the storm that over took them. Jack runs up to the last line of men killing each other. The gate is ajar, pushed open just enough to slip through it. Maybe others had the same idea, could be slaves that managed to break out. It doesn't matter. He's not a slaver any more. Just a man with a friend and two women following him, trying to escape death by the hands of a blood crazed mob. He'll come back in a few days to to see what's left. _

_Jack runs. Whether they others are still behind him or not he doesn't know or care. Somewhere in his mind a nursery rhyme speaks in a voice he doesn't recognize. It's a woman and she's almost singing; 'Jack be nimble! Jack be quick! Jack jump over the candle stick!' And he is nimble, and he is quick as he runs across the dry and dusty plain toward the horizon, hoping to find shelter to hide him from the sun and any hostile that may follow him. Jack runs and the ground opens up before him as the incline he's scaling suddenly drops in a sheer cliff. Jack jumps without thinking, without hesitation. He'd rather die than risk becoming a slave again under the new dictator. He's never felt more free than he does when his feet leave the solidity of earth and take to the air. For a few short moments he feels like he's flying. The wind pushes his long, sandy hair away from his face, cooling the sweat on his brow to which strands of hair or plastered. The sun feels warm and liberating instead of hot and oppressing. The sensation puts a smile on his face and all his worries, for a few seconds, are left behind him in the dust._

_Pain hits him like he hits the ground, hard and fast. Agony worse than any he's ever felt jars his body and, in his moment of purity, he cries out his distress. When finally he can open his eyes, his vision is blurred by the tears forced from the ducts that have not performed this duty in nearly two decades. Angry at his perceived weakness, Jack roughly smudges away the wetness. Men may cry, but Jack does not. Jack _cannot_ cry. Moments later Scout appears, panting at the top of the ravine that is a long dry river bed. His friend slides down the side as carefully as he can, sending pebbles and smaller rocks tumbling down the side. A cloud of dust billows up and Jack is angry at Scout's unintentional smoke signal. Seeing his legs, bloody and broken, he elects to hold his tongue. He is in no condition to exert authority. _

'_Jack, are ya okay?'_

_Scout shows a concern that he has never seen before. It makes him uncomfortable, but it is better than what he would have done had their roles been reversed. Soon after, the women appear and slide down the cliff. More dust billows up over the river bed. Anne has something on her back, a pack he didn't notice she had taken. She runs over to him, throwing herself on her knees at his feet. She doesn't say a word as she slings the pack off her shoulders and un-zips it. Inside she's packed away medical supplies, bandages, stints, vodka for cleaning wounds, everything she would need to set hit legs. She has a stick in one hand that she grabbed up from the dirt and she pushes this into Jacks mouth. He knows what it's for and braces himself. Anne works like a woman desperate to save a loved one, skill replaced with need as she has his companions help her hold him down. Lucy pulls his shin as Anne pushes the bone back into place. It takes a few tries before she lines it up correctly, digging out the shattered bits of bone and severed flesh. Jack tries not to cry out, but the pain is too much. He screams at the sky with all the hatred and rage and pain of his life, released by the torture of Anne's aid. When both legs are set and cleaned, Anne wraps more bandages around the secured stints. Wounded as he was, Jack could not run and his companions would not leave him. He feels faint from the pain, loss of blood and dehydration. He orders them to leave him there with food, water and ammo for his guns. He is enraged by Scout's refusal and the stress takes the last of his energy. He faints, undignified and helpless in the dust. The bright noon sun beats down on him from the dingy sky and his world goes dark and silent._

_

* * *

_

***M.C.I.; Meal, Compat, Individual rations**


	13. Wounds

_Water! He hears it dripping from somewhere near by, can smell it, it's so close. Almost taste it on his tongue, he can, and it's enough to awaken his dry mouth and summon the use of his parched and sore throat. His voice is weak and hoarse in his ears. He's sure his eyes are open, but he can't see anything. The air is dry, but there is no wind and there's a dank smell on the draft that passes over him. The dripping sound echos around him. The rock under his head feels cool and gritty. There's a fine sand at his finger tips like grains of powdered sugar. He tries to sit up, but the pounding and dizziness in his head force him to lay down again. He groans with pain as the nerves in his body awaken. His legs are screaming at him, sending waves of anguish through his body. He thinks of Anne. She set his legs and bound them. Wondering if perhaps she has something for the pain in her pack he calls out for her, but his hoarse voice doesn't carry. Clearing his throat, he tries again. This time his voice echos off the walls he can feel pressing in around him. _

'_Anne... ANNE!'_

_He hears a scuffle in the sand and whispers in the dark. He calls out again for his nurse, the only answer is more scuffling and whispers. Someone, or something else is in this place with him. Feeling around for his smg, he finds it a few palms away from his left leg. He checks his waist band, the pistol is still in place. Then he remembers the pack. That is not near, not that he can find. They must keep it with them to protect themselves and him if they should be discovered. At least, he hopes that the whispers and scuffling in the sand is Anne preparing to tend to him. He calls again._

'_Anne...? Please...'_

_But she does not answer despite the obvious discomfort in his voice, so he calls out for Lucy and Scout. He only wants to know that someone is there, that they didn't leave him to die in some hellish hole. _

'_Lucy? Scout?'_

_More scuffling and more whispers, then a muffled moan. Rage fills him. He knows the sound like he knows his own hands. He can still hear the sounds when foot steps crunch the sand on their way to him. When he feels the hem of a dress on his face he waits for the girl to kneel down. He hears the pack being sat down, then he grabs at her. He wants to know which of his girls has betray him with Scout. Which one he need to beat when he is able. He finds the knees first, then he paws up her body asking 'Which are ye?' and she answers him 'Anne.' Her soft voice tell him she speaks the truth, but he needs to know for sure. Callous hands find the large, soft suppleness of Anne's bosoms. Twins though they be, Lucy's breasts are smaller and flatter than Anne's. Satisfied that she is not the one to be unfaithful to him, he searches with his fingers until he finds her face. He brings in in and kisses her, a reward for her faithfulness. _

'_How long 'ave I been out? Wh're are we? Have ye done what yer sista is doin' now?'_

_He asks her without taking his lips from hers or releasing his iron grip on her head. He can feel her hot breath on his face, her hands steadying herself on his chest. If he were able he might have taken her in the darkness on the sandy floor. _

'_Only a few hours. Scout foun' a cave in the cliff. We done our bes' t'carry ya h're as gentle as we could. I 'ave vodka to clean, it might help wit' the pain. Th're be pills too, but I don' know what they is.'_

_Her reply does not please him because she didn't answer his last question. His hands have their strength and he uses one to grab her hair. She cries out, afraid, though he's never hurt her like he has her sister. His other hand finds the hem of her dress and her opening hidden beneath, prodding it to feel if she has changed from what she was or if she's wetter than she should be. She hasn't and she's not. Her quickening breath further arouses him, but he's still angry and still in pain. He pushes her away, growling the question low to prevent it's echo._

'_Have ye done what _she_ is doin'?'_

'_No, Jack. Ne'er been wit' no'ne else no way. Not 'less ye tell me.'_

'_An' how does I know yer not a lier?'_

_He hears her scoot closer to him, dragging the pack with her. He hears her rummaging through the supplies in it and push a cold bottle into his hands. The liquid inside sloshes around like water. He removes the cap and the smell of vodka leaves the bottle to sting his nose. He takes a swig and gives it back to her. She pours some over his legs and the new searing pain make him grit his teeth. Then she places the bottle of pills on his lap and pushes a canteen of water in his hands. _

'_I ain't ne'er lied to ye, Jack. I ne'er ran when ya released my chains, neither. I din' shoot ya when ya gamme a gun. Ye got no reason t'think me dishonest. '_

_Jack grunts. Lucy din' shoot him either, but she proved to be untrustworthy. He opens the pills, and taps out a couple smooth, round, flat trochies. He dosen't know what they are, but they're medicine if they were in the medical pack. He takes two with the water and puts them next to the rock to find later. Then he feels her hands on him, searching for this paint waist and the fly that will give her access. Her mouth distracts him from the pain until the pills and the vodka set in, which doesn't take long with no food in his stomach. The darkness changes to light in a dream he can't recall when he wakes._

_Weeks pass and they all stay in the cave with him. Scout checks on him regularly and brings him food from what he manages to steel from the compound. He tells him there are a few men left, but not many. The spoils of war are easily spirited away due to the lack of eyes to watch. They've gathered enough flammable materials to start a campfire in the shallow cave near him to keep him warm. His legs are healing, but it will take time. Anne helps him walk a little each day, but they stay in the cave. The pills keep coming, Scout brings them from the compound as well as a steady supply of vodka. The medicine, it turns out, was buffout, and he's developed a healthy addiction. He's also well on his way to becoming an alcoholic. But Scout hides the vodka and administers it as an antiseptic himself. Jack let's it slide. When he's well enough to fight, to run, he will deliver justice to his 'friend' who has taken what did not belong to him. He takes care to insure that Scout does not know that he knows what was done. In his constantly narcotized state, Jack cares not about the good that Scout has done. Only about the treachery. _

_Lucy sits by the fire near him, but she doesn't talk to him or offer comfort. She doesn't try to help him, but she doesn't hurt him either. She was his first, as he was hers, but he feels nothing for her but possession. He cares little more for Anne, though she has all but confessed her love for him despite his meanness or the way she came to be with him. He knows this, but does not return the feelings. She is to him like a good dog that does what it's been trained to do. She performs a job and she's paid by being cared for; feed, clothed and sheltered whenever it can be afforded. The same is true for Lucy, but she is a cur that bites her master's hand. If she were smart, she would run while she has the chance. He _will_ make her pay for her actions against him, just as he will Scout. If she begs forgiveness he may spare her life. Scout will not likely be so lucky._

_The day comes when he's strong enough to run, and to shoot. They leave the cave, taking as much with them as they can carry without being over burdened. They fill the canteens and empty vodka bottles with water from the spring and give themselves a dose of rad-away, just in case. Jack finds himself stronger than he should be due to the steroids. Anne's medical pack is stuffed with as many full bottles as would fit inside. They walk for miles, days, weeks and find nothing. They kill off attacking animals, mostly molerats and bloat flies, but nothing really dangerous. They avoid raiders as best they can, succeeding in their endeavor or escaping when they fail._

_The evening Scout returns to the camp inside an old home, not unlike the one where he found Anne, with news of a town within a days journey the small bad celebrates with quiet joy. No need to draw attention when they are so near temporary sanctuary. Jack knows this is the time to strike, if he still intends to do so. His resolve is faltering as he looks at his friend who has helped him to survive. He considers forgiving him, letting the matter go, even giving him Lucy. But when he tells Scout he no longer holds a grudge against him and offers Lucy as a gesture of good will, things go poorly. Scout is appalled that Jack still thinks of the girls as belonging to him. He says;_

'_I thought we was leavin' that shyt behin' us when we's leavin' that hell hole!'_

'_What's mine's still mine, an' I brought 'em wit' me!'_

_Jack answers, angry and ready to pull the trigger of the gun still tucked in his pants, even as Anne sits next to him on an old sofa left behind, cuddling up to him like a frightened child and old memories in her eyes. _

'_I guess I thought wrong, then. I mistook ya fer a man, but yer worse than the slavers 'cause ya was a slave once yerself. Yer not good 'nough fer her or any living thing t'warm yer bed!'_

_It's the last thing Scout ever says. The bullet through his head lodges in the wall behind him that's now decorated with his blood and brain and bits of skull. Next to him Anne doesn't even flinch, but the look in her eyes isn't the same as it was. It never would be again. She sits there quietly, her eyes averted. He beats her sister nearly to death saving the softer blows for the face, choking the screams before they can draw unwanted attention to their hiding. No need to damage the selling point of his merchandise. When he's done with Lucy he leaves her on the floor to her tears. He dosen't want her any more. Not after what she did to him. He takes the weapons, ammo, food and water and Anne to the upstairs bedroom. He blocks the door with the bed on which he takes his best girl. He sleeps soundly, dreamlessly, through the night until morning light shines in through the hole in the wall and broken window. _


	14. Tavern

_The morning plunder of the girl that warms his bed, ends quickly after it begins. After moving the bed to leave the room, he loads her and himself up with the packs of supplies. He doesn't expect Lucy to still be on the floor, or even in the house. When he finds her asleep on the sofa he considers leaving her. Then she wakes. Fear and hate and pain are on her bruised face. He throws a few of the heavier packs at her, but not a gun. Taking Scout's boots and clothes, he stuffs them in one of the emptier packs. He doesn't need to tell her to follow him. She does so in silence and with malice. _

_Jack marches up the small hill near the house and sees the settlement Scout had mentioned. Metal walls glow orange with the dawn around a small hamlet. It could be just a stop on the way to greener pastures, or it could be his future home waiting for him. Now, it is only a shining glint of hope near the horizon. Hope that rests on the inhabitants of that town, and their hospitality. By the days end he and the two women with him are welcomed into the town by a balding, stout man who is the owner of the only saloon. He learns quickly that he who owns the bar owns the town. Pete, the owner of the bar, is kind to Jack and his 'sisters'. He gives them a room in his saloon and jobs. Anne works the kitchen while Lucy helps a ghoul called Egor at the bar. Jack is bus boy and janitor. _

_Soon he builds up a report with the regular customers and becomes popular with the natives. Day by day he finds ways to get close to the older man, who eventually tells him how like a son he is to him. Pete teaches him how to run things, how to keep the water pumps working, about the trade routes and the secrets of the orchard that grows under the little hill on which the tavern is built. The 'father' teaches his 'son' how to make ultra jet and even make his own buffout. He teaches him how to play the market. For Jack, it's just like slaving. Once fateful day Pete confides in him that his mind is going lucid with old age, but has no heir to take over for him. Being the man he is, Jack offers Lucy to provide such an heir. Pete laughs, thinking it's a joke. Before Jack can correct him, Pete offers _him_ the bar. He politely declines, knowing Pete will insist. The announcement is made the next night. Pete could have been telling his customers he was adding pie to the menu. They were nonchalantly joyful, and mostly disinterested. It was just a change of hands, if it wasn't the old man's mind slipping again. However, night after night Jack took a bit more control as Pete lost a bit more of his ability to be anything but blissfully happy the way children are. The only one to ever speak against it, the only other who had more right to inherit the property, was Egor. Making his complaint well know one night when the saloon was as full as the moon, he confronted Jack and a very confused Pete._

'_Master Pete, why are you giving this _deceiver _your property as heir? Have I not served you faithfully all these long years? I should be he who is akin to family to you. What have I done to be passed over and superceded by a lier and a thief?'_

_Pete is too far gone to know what is going on. To him, the bar is Jack's and always has been. The people know this isn't true, and some agree with Egor. Thanks should be given to any god that my be looking on them that night that Pete's mind is quick to forget a moment gone by. Those that would take Egor's side are quickly silenced as Egor looses his ability to form words. Jack is nimble! Jack is quick! Jack jumps over the counter with a knife for which to stick! Egor's tongue is cut from his mouth and while he holds a rag to stop the bleeding, Jack eats the tongue that would speak 'lies' against him and take what is rightfully his. The fear and associated respect he sees in the eyes of the patrons and the ghoul makes him feel powerful, but he does not abuse the power he is given. As long as no one speaks ill of him, he is kind and generous. The few that do are either disabled from doing so again, or killed and eaten. 'Waste not, want not' is what Jack tells the people, and the people do not want to be eaten. _

_Years pass and the girls each have their own room, as does he. Their minds are not what they were, especially Anne's. Not since the night in the house. So he barters a deal with them. They were free, and he would never touch them again. They could stay and work as they pleased. He would pay them with food and shelter, but any caps they earned were to be taxed for 'living expenses' they incurred on him. Fearful of what may wait for them outside the protective walls of the town they agree. Egor stays for much the same reason, and privileges to the girls. He notices that Anne seems to enjoy it, so for her it is a reward. Lucy is terrified of the ghoul, so for her it is a punishment. Egor does not want to loose more parts, so he does as he's told, whether he likes it or not. Jack enjoys his power, but as more time goes by he becomes lonely. He dose not want the twins, not after so many have had their way with them. They are filth to him now and is loathed to even look at them. Until one day a young wastelander comes to his town. The way she searches the room with her jaded blue eyes he knows what she is looking for and how she pays for it. He knows he is the one for which she is searching and he wonders if he would like her. He knows she's been with others, but that was before she came to him. If she would be only his there after, perhaps he would not have to be alone any longer. But she looks smart. She will want to know him if she stays. He cannot tell her, not everything. Yet he feels he must be as honest with her as he can if he wishes her to be his, as though she will know if he is not. He must be careful, he must be nimble, but not too quick. Jack jumps over the 'candle stick'. _


	15. Future

People could still be heard through the door clanking their glasses of ale and making merry amongst themselves. Occasionally Anne's laughter fluttered up above the din like music composed by a lunatic. The noise was almost a comfort, a low rumble that threatened to lull her to sleep in the darkness of the room. The moon had passed over the roof little more than an hour ago, taking with it the glow that had illuminated the surfaces it touched. Beside her, the man called Jack snored softly with a half eaten apple still in hand. She took it from the loose fingers and finished it off for him. Small though it was, this hamlet was the richest place she'd come across. It seemed to be protected well enough. There was plenty of food though the village was far from any natural source. The town even had it's own spring. She would live almost as a queen if she stayed here with him. Uncertainty clouded her mind and muddled her thoughts. She couldn't help but wonder if she was feeling the need to leave simply because it was what she'd always done. If her worries about Jack, as he was and not as he had been, were the delusions of paranoia. There were no clear reasons why she shouldn't stay and plenty of reasons why she should.

Leona to_ok _the empty plate from the mattress and sl_id_ it under the bed. The soft scraping on the wood planks hardly mad_e_ a difference among the babble thatdrifted up from below.Settling on the bed, naked as he, she cuddled up to his body for warmth. He woke just enough to wrap his body around her, then surrender to the sleep that griped him. She allowed her eyes to close. She told herself she's only going to stay one more day, then sneak away the next night with whatever vittles she can carry. This was her plan as the call of open spaces sang to her on the breeze that stirred the dirt on the floor. But the mattress was soft under her weight and she didn't worry about attacks or theft. His body was warm and his arms around her felt secure and comforting. Perhaps she would stay. After all, she had given her word. The thought contented her and sleep took her to a place where she dreamt of a life that was not as caged at the vault, but not as free as the open world. A life that was secure and safe where she never wanted for the necessities of living.

The sunlight lit up the dull curtains with a soft rosy glow. The scent of freshly cooked brahmin steaks and steamed fruit wafted up to her from the kitchen. Egor, presumably, was making breakfast. The smell roused her from sleep with a grumbling hunger. Her eyes fluttered open to see Jack's silvery grey gems shining back at her. Grinning at him, she felt his arms tighten around her and his morning arousal poked her thighs as if knocking on the door. She let him in and she's surprised that her mind is just as willing as her body to accept his affection. Returning his passions with the innocent desires she once felt in her youth, she enjoyed his body joining with hers. Climax came easier and quicker than it has in the past for her and he seemed to notice. A grin spread over his handsome features void of malice or ill intention. She can see only the pleasure he takes from knowing she is with him in the moment and not 'paying' for her needs. He cradled her under him and caressed her cheek with one rough thumb. His tongue still tastes of fruit, as sweet as the kisses he lavished on her lips and neck. His presents inside her built a heat in her that she'd forgotten she could feel. Her breathing became in labored pants and her body quivered with the ecstacy he provides her. Her hips rocked against him and his rolled into her. She felt his completion was nigh when his manhood hardened all the more inside her. Throbbing pulses pumped a liquid head into her and he growled his release above her, thrusting harder into her depths. The feeling was intense and she joined his cry with her own moaning of orgasmic finish. He stayed inside her for a time, panting over her and smiling as he watched her chest heave her gasps for air.

"Ye really are gonna stay, ain't ye?"

His face looked the happiest she'd seen it. His eyes almost danced with the excitement he must have felt. She delayed her answer with continued panting, as if she could not catch air enough to even nod, as her mind raced for an answer she did not have.

"I've been so lonely h're. Th're's com'ny, sure, but it ain't the same as havin' a girl t'call m'own. Without belongin' t'some'ne that might love me someday."

"Love ya?"

His words caught her by surprise. She had not expected him to be seeking such a thing as love and acceptance. Likely, he could have any woman he wanted in his kingdom, or all of them if he chose. It was curious to her that he would want only one and to be faithful to her. That the one he wanted was she.

"Yar, love me. E'ery livin' thing seeks love o' a kin' from it's kindr'd. T'is the way any kin' o' thing survives. The way the nex' gen'ration comes t'bein'."

His hand slid from under her back, over her erect nipples to rest on her belly as he continued to look deep into her eyes. She tried to steady herself, to not jump and run as quickly as she could from his bed. He wanted a mate, but more he wanted a child. Or he thought she did and it was a bribe to get her to stay. Alarm filler her body and mind as she realized he was still inside her, blocking any seed from leaking out that he'd planted in her womb. There was nothing she could do if she was to keep the calm that was between them. Hope that the implantation wouldn't take was all she had. Thinking quickly, she responded with the only question she could thing to ask.

"If I gave ya m'heart, would ye love me back?"

"Course!"

He looked down at her as if she were crazy to ask such a thing. As if it would only be the proper response.

"What kin' o'man would I be t'not love 'ne who loved me, an' what called me th're's? I'm not the heathen I was yers ago."

"No, yer not."

She smiled up at him, thinking thoughts contrary to what her mouth told him. He was not the same. In ways he was a much better man. But in ways he was worse, manipulating her and trying to trap her into having to stay with him to ease his loneliness and selfish desires. She wondered if he would indeed let her go if she asked to leave. He had shared his life with her because she promised to live in his kingdom as his queen, or as his concubine. No, he would not let her leave now.


	16. Trapped

Full from her breakfast, Leona wandered the town__looking__for anything that might help her. A hole in the wall that she could crawl through, a hidden place she could climb over the wall and drop down the other side, anything.__There was nothing. No holes, no gaps she could make wider, no foot holds or supports she could climb up except by the main gate to get to the look out post. With that option taken from her she had only one other. The main gate. She had nothing with her. The jacket, the pip boy, food, water, all these things that she could not leave without were back at the tavern.__If the__guards let her through, she could at least check the exterior__of the walls surrounding the town. There could be something she missed from the interior. Approaching the guards she felt a nervous knot in her stomach. She tried to think of what she would do if they wouldn't open the gate for her or what she would do if they did. She had the choice to not come back, to abandon what little she had and take her chances in the open with no weapons or provisions, much as she had that very first day of freedom.__But she would be lacking the one thing that had helped save her life more times than she could keep track. The pip boy. Without it, she wasn't confident in her ability to survive with nothing else but the cloth on her back.

"Hey, miss. Wh're might ya be goin'?"

One of the guards inquired of her intentions. His face was gruffer than most of the other men in town. There were few women and no children that she'd seen. He seemed to eye her with suspension, though it could have been her paranoia causing problems for her again.

"I jus' wanna take a look 'round. Maybe do a bit of scavengin'. Nothin' unusual."

The expression of the guard didn't change, but she maintained her innocence. Moments of scrutiny later, he must have decided she being truthful because he nodded and gave the signal with a circular motion of one finger and the gate opened with a grinding strain. She nodded her thanks and slipped through the crack as soon as she would fit through it. She felt like running, arms open to embrace the death and danger of the dry plains like an old friend. At least she knew the wastes well enough. This new world was much smaller, yet seemed just as threatening as anything she would find in the wild. Her eyes roamed the vast empty space that rolled out in every direction like a beige sheet laid over a lumpy spread of stones. The stale air or occasional breeze within the steel walls was a hard wind, kissing her with bits of sand and pebble. A grin painted her face as she adjusted the goggles on her head over her eyes. She never thought she would miss the uncertainty that the world outside presented. She would run, but not now. Despite the urging in her legs that made her feel as though she might sprout wings, she turned toward the nearest curving edge that marked where the town ended and the unknown began.

The walls were just the same on the outside as they were on the in, only more smooth and impenetrable. Somehow she felt as though he were watching her, though it would have been impossible. The world beyond surrounded her, beaconing and threatening. It was difficult to tell where the beige of the sky ended and the grim of the earth began. She thought she could see the faintest impression of mountains on the indeterminate horizon, or it could be clouds of a coming storm that would bring the dream of rain. She had never seen or felt such a thing wet her face from the sky. Only read about and remembered stories from faceless tellers of when the mystery would fall to the ground and give life to the seeds planted in the dry ground. She didn't believe in any sort of god on the grounds that mostly the crazies talked of such things, and she couldn't believe that a loving heavenly father would have allowed the detestation of his creations. The evidence of destruction was everywhere. Evidence of mercy and compassion, not so much. But if there were such a diety she would pray that he, she, it or they would bring cleansing waters to wash away the confusion in her mind and parch the dry thirst of land and tongues.

Eventually she returned to the gate, empty handed and heavy of heart. The sun told her it was around the fourteenth hour of the day, but her stomach was still full from her breakfast with Jack. He had seemed as happy as a child on the day of his birth celebration. Somewhere inside her she wanted to believe that staying with him, making him happy and maybe learning to love him would help him move beyond his ties to his dark past. She didn't want to 'fix' or 'change' him, only help him in the journey he was already on. She still could not find a reason why she should care. In a way, this troubled her more than Jack. Self understanding was something she had a measure of pride about. Knowing herself well enough to prepare for any circumstance. Her current situation was not one she'd ever thought to consider, and it vexed her greatly that she was in such conflict and turmoil for a reason she didn't have. She didn't even like this man, yet she found herself caring about him. If only she had someone she could talk to that she could trust not to expose her inner most thoughts. Then she thought of Egor. He had spared her the loss of a body part for stealing, and had not reported her deed. Perhaps he would listen to her. He couldn't offer advice, but he couldn't betray her either. At least not with words.


	17. Raven

Leona found Egor right where she suspected she might, in the kitchen. He wasn't doing anything, not even cleaning. He simply sat in the corner near the fridge on an old stool with his back to the wall. There was something in his leper like fingers she had not seen many of since leaving the vault, and none in so good a condition. The cover was hardly worn, the corners were rounded from multiple impacts, but the cardboard beneath was not exposed or frayed. The pages were yellow with age as he turned them, not noticing the squeaky door as it opened, letting her into the small room.

"Excuse me," She nearly whispered, not wanted to startle him, but she knew not what else to do.

Egor looked up sharply. Quickly, but carefully he snapped the book shut and hid it behind him like a child caught with a cookie before dinner. Seeing it was not who he feared her to be, he relaxed and settled the book on his lap with a finger to his lips, hissing his attempt at a shush.

"I won't tell a soul." She promised him. "If ye will offer me the same."

Egor slowly shook his head in agreement. Uncertainty of what he would be needed to keep secret was written on his face. He gestured for her to come nearer with a wave of the hand that had provided the shush. She sat on the dusty floor at his feet, tucking her boots under her knees.

"What'er ya readin'?" She asked.

Egor held up the book so she could read the title etched into it's graying surface. It read simply the author's name. She imagined it a collection of the artist's works, though she's never heard of him. The book was much to thick for it to consist of only one tale. She nodded and smiled, as if she liked his choice of reading. The ghoul smiled back with but a faint straining of the lips.

"Who was he?" She asked, then realizing her mistake reworded the question. "Was this 'Poe' alive when ya first read 'is words?"

Egor shook his head.

"Would ya lemme borrow it t'read m'self?"

Again he shook his head, and clutched the book tightly to his chest.

"I see..."

Her eyes dropped to the floor boards, the tips of her, now dirty, fingers drew fluid patterns in the dust. The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them, like a dam that can't hold back the flood waters any longer.

"I was thinkin' 'bout stayin', but I don't know if I should. Jack confuses me. He tol' me 'is story. His life was not what mos' prob'ly suspect. He seems kind enough, but there are things 'bout him I don't trust. The worse' part is, I don' know why I care. Have I deluded m'self t'cope t'the point I don' know the truth?"

She looked up at the ghoul with a furrowed brow and dry eyes. Her lips were in a subtle pout, letting a measure of her distress expose itself on her face. Unfair as it was, a part of her expected Egor to have answers for her. Some wisdom or epiphic advice that would guild her down the correct path. Egor seemed to think for a moment, his eyes steady on her but not looking at her. Then a spark of light appeared to twinkle in his, otherwise, deadened eyes. The pages of the book in his lap fluttered like the wings of a bird in flight as he filtered through them in search of some phrase or line of words. His terrible fingers held the pace of a few pages before he waved her up to him to read where he pointed over his shoulder. Her eyes followed the tip of his finger, reading quietly aloud as best she could. He then flipped the pages to the next place held for her to read when she'd finished what the intended passage.

'Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.'

flip

'It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.'

flip

'Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.'

flip

'The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true.'

Thump. Egor snapped the book shut, grinned at her and, hopping off the stool, left the kitchen gutturally humming an unknown happy tune in his throat. It was a strange sight to see and a strange sound to hear a ghoul in light spirits. He must have thought he'd done a great deed and helped her with his borrowed words. However, as smart as she was, Leona stood more confused than ever by the refrigerator in the corner of a small kitchen in a tavern in a hidden town. A week from the mountains and a day from a sloping hill which sheltered a little house where two women lost the rest of their minds and a man lost his life. A few days beyond that the river bed where the hundredth man broke his legs when he thought he was flying. Beyond that, the remains of a slaver compound that used to be a military outpost instillation for the U.S. Army with an incomplete bomb shelter. Had she known, she may have fled that very moment with whatever she could carry in the burlap sack that lay on the floor by the door. But she tarried to long with muddled thoughts and her would be plans were foiled by the unexpected hunger of a man craving a snack. Iguana-on-a-stick was not the only thing to be poked in the kitchen that afternoon, but surely the only thing that had not enjoyed it.


	18. Escape

Yet another night slipped by, lost to the passions of his embrace. She had never enjoyed a man so. As much as she was afraid of him, she felt as though he'd cast a spell on her. Not only was she willing to bed with him, but she wanted him. That night she had initiated the interaction, much to Jack's surprise and delight. She told herself, one last time. One last night. Then she would leave. A month went by before she was able to convince herself that she would either leave to be a prisoner by her own undoing. Something was happening in the small hamlet, and she didn't intend to be caught up in the storm when it began to rain. Egor had been spending more time in Anne's room without being given the order to reward her for good behavior. The quiet moans behind the door could only be heard with ear pressed to wood, but they were there. More unusual were his visits to Lucy. There were no moans or the loud slaps of punishment. If she pressed her ear to the door she could only faintly make out the low voice of Lucy muttering words she couldn't make out. The days were cooler than they had been. Cool enough that she could get by with wearing her jacket. She started wearing the pip boy beneath the sleeve to reacclimate herself to it's weight and presence. Jack had given her an old back pack for local scavenging; green with faded lettering that could no longer be read. When the first gun shots were fired inside the walls of the kingdom about to crumble, Leona ran to the kitchen with the pack. Setting it on the floor, she filled it with the necessities. Pure water, fresh fruit, brahmin steaks and medical supplies; rad-away and stimpacks. There was no more waiting. No more easy nights and delusions of love. A large hunting knife lay on the kitchen counter by the sink. A ray of light shined through the slit near the ceiling from the late afternoon sun and caught on it's clean blade. This she took for good measure and stowed in the hand made sheath in the lining of her boot. At that moment Jack ran in, bursting into the small space with a crazed look in his eye.

"Good thinkin'!" He told her, his wild eyes on the knife. "H're's a gun!"

He pushed a loaded revolver into her hand. It looked nearly new, but old at the same time. His hands stayed closed over hers with the gun between them for several seconds. His face intent on hers. Then those strong hands grabbed her head. He was licking his lips and searching her face, looking for something. He must have found it.

"Yer with me, right? M'love?"

He panted, out of breath or excited, she couldn't tell. He was clearly insane. His hair was wind blown in every direction. He was nearly frothing at the mouth. His eyes were wide with whatever blood thirst was coursing in his veins. There was only one answer that she would survive.

"Of course, m'love."

"Yeah... yeah.." He panted.

Then his lips were on hers, his tongue probing her mouth and molesting her tongue in a forceful kiss that made her heart leap into her throat and drop into her belly simultaneously. She'd never been more afraid of him, or more excited by him, as if his madness transferred to her with the kiss. He left as suddenly as he came, grabbing the rifle he'd leaned against the wall when he entered and cocking a round into place. He had not noticed the full pack on the floor by the fridge, and she was grateful. She grabbed the pack and headed for the door once she heard it close behind the bar keep.

There was only the front door. She could distinguish Jack's voice from the others shouting outside the tavern walls. Her heart beat in her chest like a drum, and her ribs were the hands pounding out the rhythm. He had a gun. If he saw her with the full pack, there would be no doubts that she was leaving. She was more afraid than ever. The nervous knot in her gut was surrounded by a thousand butterflies. The flutters felt so real she felt as though she might vomit. Peaking through the window she saw Egor backed by over half the town and Lucy was with him. All armed with every mannar of weapons; guns, knives, pitchforks... They were opposed by Jack, Anne and a handful of others she'd seen making merry with the bar keep on many a night, including the portly bald man. It was a war for control of the town. Somehow the tongueless ghoul had silently turned the town against their noble king and a revolt had been organized by his hand. She was surprised to see Anne oppose Egor, as much as she had praised him. But it was a story she had not time nor desire to hear. Suddenly there was a loud shout followed by many more. War cries echoed off the buildings and into the orange glowing sky. Huge clouds of dust rose from the battle so thick it nearly blocked the view of the slaughter. Amber light glinted off the barrels of shot guns and bloodied blades as they flashed with violent vision to plunge into their victims. Now was the moment, and she took it.

Skirting the battle was the easy part. Not looking at the carnage and gore that splattered the ground at her feet was harder and more terrifying. Bullets zinged passed her head to burrow a hole into the wood of a support or wall. She barely escaped a one on one battle of two men with knifes that had been flung from the main writhing body of killing. She could see her freedom, just beyond the gate. It had been left open when the fighting ensued. A merchant could be seen leading his brahmin away as quickly as he could without looking back. Then she felt a sharp pain that tore through her from her scalp to her knees. Her head was rudely snapped back to look up into the venomous eyes of Lucy. She looked more crazed than Jack. Her breath heaved and hissed from between lips and teeth that were stained with blood. Her wild hair was on fire, but the whore seemed not to notice or to care. Then there was the unmistakable pinch of a blade against her throat.

"Yer not goin' no wh're!" Lucy spat in her face. "I know! Ya think I don', but I does! I know, and yer gonna pay fer bein' his perddy one, ya are! Yer gonna pay wit' yer blood!"

But a few weeks of living in safety and security had not dulled the skills she'd honed living in the wasteland. Ignoring the pain of her flesh, she twisted out of Lucy's vice like grip, snagging the hilt of the knife. In one smooth motion, she plunged the knife as hard as she could into the exposed and battered chest of the woman who would keep her from freedom and threaten her life. She had to use her foot as leverage to pull the blade from between Lucy's ribs. She didn't stay to watch the wench bleed to death and drown on her own blood, or to see her matted hair burn like straw down to her head and blister her skin. No. She ran like the devil from the grace of god to the open gate. She thought she could hear Jack's voice above the screams and noise of war calling to her, shouting;

"Don' go! Ya said ye was wit' me! I love ye! Come back!"

Whether it was true or not, she did not look to see. She could not, if she was to follow her feet through the door. The cries, real or imagined, forced the tears passed the lump in her throat and along the sides of her face as she ran. And she ran. She ran until she could not hear his calling to her. Until she could not hear the screams and cries of battle and killing, or smell the blood spilled on the dirt or the stench of burning hair. She ran until her sides hurt as if tent pegs were drilled into her. She ran until she could not breath and her legs fell out from under her. Then she cried and lamented the loss of a home and a man who told her he loved her. Words she had not heard since the vault. Words she thought she would never hear again that weren't lies. Crazy as he was, he probably believed he meant it. She wondered if he had been killed, or if Egor, who had tried to help her, had survived and earned the right to run the town in peace. She wondered if Anne betrayed Jack for the ghoul. And she wondered why she cared, why she couldn't stop crying. She found shelter in a sandy cave at the bottom of a long dried river bed, and she cried until a dreamless sleep stole her away with exhaustion.


	19. Parasites

The next morning cast a pale light on the western wall of the sandy cave. Deeper in, Leona sat in the darkness, blinking at the light on the stone wall as if she'd never seen light before. The apple in her hand had been eaten, the last bite still crunching in her mouth. The bare core, chewed down to the hard center, was left in the dirt to writer and rot. With the pack on her back, she headed out into the early morning light of dawn. She felt for the revolver tucked in her waist band. It was still there. Her fingers probed her pockets for any forgotten treasures stored there. Something hard and smooth met her tips and she pulled out the thing stuck there. It was a key. The key to his room and his bath. Her eyes focused on a length of leather buried in the sand. She was not the first to discover this place. Picking it up and seeing that it did not crumble in her grasp, she threaded it through the eye of the key and tied it around her neck. It could have been an unfired bullet that, if hit just right, would explode and remove her head from her body. A sentimental reminder of what it was like to fall in love with the son of Lucifer. For she had come to love him. That was why she had cared. She had never loved another the way she loved Jack, and never would again, if she ever found love again at all.

Dark smoke billowed up over the rise in the land, like a monolithic mushroom sculpture made of black iron. Her feet started in that direction, as if pulled. As if her body had to see if Jack was still alive, covered with filth and the claret of the fray. But her mind panicked and flashed the memory of what might be mountains, or the fuzzy blur of the horizon clouded with dust. Mountains meant water, shelter and possibly food. Her feet altered their path and removed the pillar of back from her sight and replaced it with open land and open sky. The struggle for life began again, and she welcomed it with a grateful heart.

Nothing. As far as her goggle shielded eyes could see, there was nothing. She slept in the open, under her beloved stars, because there was no where else to sleep. With the pip boy set to sound an alarm if any creature larger than an iguana neared her, she found rest gazing up at the constellations she could still plot in the night sky. Draco, taurus, orion; points of light she remembered from books in her father's library. Then she could not imagine an space so big or so high, or how large the images were that the galaxy had painted in the vastness of the universe. Now their light only filled her soul with a richness of spirit and refreshed her mind from the drudgery of thought. They allowed her to dream in a dreamless world on sand and stone that would provoke bitterness from her otherwise.

The dawn came a little latter each day and the evening a little sooner. As she traveled across the subtle rise and fall of the land, the green pack on her back became lighter as she became a little hungrier. Sand turned to dust that became earth and rock. The mountains on the horizon became a little clearer as she neared them. She began to wish for something to attack her, man or beast, so that she would have meat of which to make a meal. But there was nothing in the open of the rolling hills or flat valleys. She began to wonder if his was the last pit of life in a world that had died.

When she arrived in the shadow of the mountains, to which she had tied her hope, her pack had been empty for three days. Hunger burned in her gut with an acid anger. Though she felt she was starving, her belly only grew. She worried that she had ingested a parasite and she would die. Then the first of many hard blows from the inside pushed hard against her flesh, causing it to bulge out in a small lump. Now she worried that she had gone insane and was hallucinating, or her hunger had created a mirage to goad her into finding food.

The mountain side was crumbling and difficult. She would have circumvented the problem if she could see the end of the ridge where it tapered down into the earth again. The chain seemed to march on to the beginning and end of time to block her passage. After many hours of toil she found a shack nestled in the crevice of two merging peeks. She still had her knife, though she was to round to use it, and her gun, though her ballance was off; weighted by her middle. It was no hallucination or mirage. If it was a parasite it would surely kill her.

Desperate, hungry, tired and terrified of the thing growing inside her, she pushed open the door to the shack. Unlike the scentless harsh winds outside the creaking walls, the air here smelled of old wood and long forgotten solitude. There was a bed, a bucket and a stove next to an ice box and a pile of logs. She found some dried fruit and M.C.I.'s. She didn't know what those were, but she didn't care. It was food and she ate it greedily. Whoever had lived here had stored enough of the brown, plastic packages to last for years. She stuffed what she could in her pack, rearranging them several times to maximize the space to rations ratio. There was no water and the air was thin and dry. She had only a few bottles left of what she'd taken from the kitchen so long ago, rationed to the last drop. Drinking only enough to wet her throat and saving the rest, she wedged the bottle back into the pack. She needed to sleep, but she worried that the hut may still have an occupant. For a long time she waited, sitting on the bed, for someone to arrive and find her as an intruder and a thief. No one ever came. By days end she had elected to block the door with the pile of logs, moving one at a time from their dust covered corner. She had tried the ice box first, but it had caused her great pain in her belly.

The comfort of the old mattress was divine compared to the hard sand of the plain. There were no holes in the roof through which to see the stars, but sleep took her regardless. Upon waking she pains takingly moved the logs to peer outside. The wind blew and the dim sky showed no sign of time of day. It was just a grey and gloomy as it had been the day before. She shut the door against the wind and replaced the logs. Her eyes fell to the floor where the logs had been and noticed the dust settled there in a crisp grey square. A trap door. The lift ring was encrusted with filth, and her need was great. The old, rusted hinges groaned as the heavy lid was lifted from the hole. She might have expected a tunnel or a vertical cave with metal rungs to climb down into the darkness, but instead she found a trickle of water silently dribbling up from the stone to trickle under the shack and behind it into the crevice where it likely filled some large underground cavern. Activating her pip boy's Geiger Counter, she scanned the water for rads. It barely registered. Fresh water. She was almost giddy with joy as she filled up the empty bottles and the canteen. As the last topped off the pain in her belly returned as a large lump that rolled across her abdomen. The pain caused her to drop the bottle and spill the precious liquid within. Grabbing at the source of her discomfort she found it hard and somehow _living_! The realization of the truth she'd stubbornly tried to ignore settled over her mind like a cloud settles over the peak of a mountain. She was not infected with some monstrous parasite. Not exactly. She was pregnant with Jack's child.


	20. Pilot

At first she felt lonely. She'd become accustomed to being around more people more often. When she slept, feeling the mattress under her instead of sand reminded her of him, and she missed his warmth. Later she missed his firm, but gentle touch and his presence within her. When she could't sleep, because of the baby or because she didn't have the security of his body next to her, she fingered the key she'd strung around her neck. Her fear of him did not prevent her from missing him.

She had food, water and shelter from the harsh winds. She only left the shed at what she figured to be noon to explore and to pass water or defecate. As the days became shorter, she'd begun hearing the noises of animals outside the shed at all other hours. She would have attempted an attack on one of them, they didn't sound as if they were very large or lethal, but she was too swollen to put on her boots without a struggle. She hadn't bothered to cry or to worry. Neither of those things would make a difference. If the baby was to come, it would. She could only take it in stride. Food burned in her chest and water seemed to pass right through her. The child rolled around inside her like a mole-rat tumbling down a cliff. It was interesting to watch the flesh of her belly move and change with the actions of the person inside readying themselves to enter the world. Her jacket and tank had taken up residence on the end of the bed long ago when she could no longer fit them. Denims left undone and sagged about her hips, she did what she could to be comfortable on the old mattress. She passed the time thinking about how she would care for the little one in a land so hostile and dangerous. Food and clean water were wonderful, a blessing to have, but she could not keep to the shed forever. The space would soon grow to small for a young child, and she couldn't very well keep them locked up except at noon. Children needed space to play and run and a safe place to call home. She had to go back.

Stretching out the tank to cover as much as she could and slipping her arms through their places in the jacket, she dressed as best she could. Packing what she would fit in the pack, that was now wearing through in the corners, she left as soon as she thought it to be safe. She stopped dead in her tracks at the door when she opened it to find a large creature a few meters off. A mole-rat. Nothing too dangerous. If she slipped quietly by it would likely ignore her. The door closed with a groaning creak of hinges. The hairless beast twitched an ear and glanced in her direction. Revolver at the ready, she kept her back steadies against the shack. The rough surface of the wood planks had been smoothed with time. Her hand felt along the grooves to help guild her feet down the slope as she kept an eye on the mole-rat. Her foot slipped on a loose rock and she skidded, falling to the ground in an undignified heap. The animal only sniffed at her, then continued to dig under a overhanging bolder for moss or mouse to eat. She took many more minor tumbles as she scaled down the rocky mountain side. Tiny stones and pebbled crunched under her heavy boots as she made careful steps toward the roots. Now she hoped the empty vastness was still as empty as it had been when she came. There were only six shots in the gun, and that would hardly be enough to take out more than one mole-rat or anything else that might come across the round meal that she would make.

Following the direction of the sun at dawn, she returned on a different path. She wondered what she might find when she reached the hamlet. If anyone would be left. She wondered if Jack would be happy to see her and forgive her for leaving. Even if she found it empty, there were more provisions there than at the shack, and the walls would protect her and her little one. If the trader still traveled there for commerce, she would have plenty to trade him for anything she might need.

The hard wind blew sand and grit into her hair and stung her face and exposed belly. The lenses of her goggles were scratched so badly it was difficult to see through them. Walking was a slower process than it had been before. She hardly walked at all, but waddled more than anything, leaving behind her a strange trail in the dust. Most nights she lay awake until her lids were to heavy to keep open, looking up at the stars that she had been forced to hide from in the shack on the mountain. The baby seemed most active at night as well, kicking and rolling, keeping her awake with it's wiggling. A name had not yet come to her. She considered Orion, or Caelum. Maybe Jack had a name he wanted to use.

"Jack... Had he really been so bad?" She wondered aloud to the dirt and empty spaces.

He had been kind to her. Given her everything she needed and a little more. Were it not for the war and his vaguely conveyed past, she might have kept her word. Now she was on a journey to return to what was likely ruin and decay.

Days turned to weeks as she moved slowly across the plain. In the distance she could just make out a small oval shape on the ground. It wasn't a hill or a rock. The cooling sun light glinted of the surface as if it were metal. Against her logic, her heart leapt in her chest as if it were the walls of the town. But it was too small to be any town. Keeping it in her sight, she traveled on. She stopped to eat when she was hungry or drink when her mouth was too dry to breath. By the days end she had acquired her target. The cockpit of a crashed plane. The hull was riddled with rust encrusted holes. The single pilot's seat still had the bones, baked white by decades of sun, of the last man to fly it strapped in. His uniform had long turned to dust The name plate the pilot had worn lay on the seat under him where it must have fallen when cloth and flesh rotted away. With her knife she cut the straps free. The bones toppled to the floor where they shattered like glass to power. The uninhibited wind took the remains and scattered them across the planes and hills. She fingered the dull metal and turned it over in her hand to read the name carved into the tin tag. Each letter was packed with grim, and the edges and begun to wear away. But the name was still legible. Cpt. F. James. She didn't know what F. might have been, but Cpt. was captain. The last bit of Captain James caught on the breeze and was lost to the whim of the weather. Leona slept in the captain's chair that night. The torn and cracked leather seat was miles more comfortable than the mattress in the shack or the hard earth. She slept with her hands on her belly and her eyes on the stars through the cracked windshield. It was nice to be able to look at them without the marred lenses of the goggles to distort their light. She smiled in her sleep with the bundle inside her kicked and stretched out it's limbs. But her brow furrowed with worry and fear.


	21. Embrace

Once again, it was nightfall when she arrived at the gate to the hamlet. The stars shone brightly over the world and the full moon lit her path. The wind blew sand in her hair and her face, making her look much as she had on the day she first arrived. She could still smell the sting smoke and the tinge of blood. The gate was open just wide enough that she could squeeze through, but it was a tight fit. With the walls protecting her from threat of sand filled wind, she pushed the goggles from her eyes to rest over her hair line. There were no guards or gunmen at the gate. No rush of desperate souls to greet her. Not even the bodies she'd expected to be lying where they fell in the dirt. Signs of battle remained, however. Bullet holes and scorch marks. Burned buildings and homes. The tavern still stood, though it had suffered damage. The windows were broken and it was clear that fire had not left it untouched by the blackened shadows of flame that twisted up the face. She saw no one. No trace of life was left in the dust or peered out at her from darkened holes. Yet she felt as though someone was watching her. As she neared the pub, her eyes sought out the small window that marked his room. Their room. The curtains hung, torn and more ragged than before, blowing tiredly in the breeze like a frail old woman about to die.

The door was opened in her hand, leaving char on her palm and fingers, with a complaining groan. The interior had survived without much proof of the war that had destroyed the town. It was dustier than before. She could smell it more than see it in the darkness. leaning columns of light held up the walls where the moon beams shone through to anchor to the floor. She thought about checking the kitchen first, but she was more tired than hungry or thirsty. She still had a few M.C.I.'s packs and water in the canteen.

The stairs groaned as her feet disturbed the dust settled there. Both the doors on the landing were open. No one was inside. The well worn beds sagged as sad as the village on their frames. The tread bare rugs were as grey as the wood, almost silver in the thin sliver of moon light that peeked through the smaller windows. His door was shut. She tried the handle. It was not locked. She fingered the key around her neck. Whatever happened here, he had clearly not planned to return. The door creaked open with a mournful cry. The room appeared the same as before. Wardrobe in the corner, oriental rug on the floor clinging to the last faint colors of it's design, the brass bed with it's old mattress and long worn grooves where the two of them had slept and loved. The chair by the door was empty as was the laundry line the was strung across one end of the room. Then her eyes moved to the window. Her heart caught in her throat with her breath when she saw Jack. He leaned against the wall of the alcove, just out of reach of the tattered hem of the curtains, staring out at the stars and the moon as it rose from it's hole in the horizon. The pale light illuminated only pieces of him from the shadow; his denims at his knee, the toe of one boot, the fingers holding the cigarette and the smoke that ghosted up to the rafters. When he took a draw the cherry burned a demonic red. His must have been the gaze she felt. Seeing him again made her eyes water. A single tear escaped her attempt to blink them back. The silver trail it left down her cheek swept away a layer of sand and grit that had accumulated there. She could barely muster the whisper that left her lips.

"I heard tale," She began.

Her words hardly phased him, or perhaps the decimation of his home had stolen his humanity. He seemed only a shell of his former self, but she knew that to be deception of her own mind. She could almost feel the clash of storm and calm within him permeating the room. He continued to look up at the night sky, turning his ear to her ever so slightly to let her know he was listening. But he did not look at her.

"That if ya stare too long out int' the black, it consumes yer soul and leaves ya empty as an egg what has noth'n inside it."

"I would have t' tell ya that it ain't so." He replied softly, tearing his eyes from the tiny dots of brilliance to look at her. His eyes found hers in the darkness. "I would have t'tell ya it be quite the opposite. I feel as though m'soul is filled wit' the light what shines through, as a candle behind black paper filled wit' holes."

"Ye speak well fer one so young."

She grinned remorsefully at him with furrowed brow. She fidgeted nervously for a moment before she attempted to speak again.

"Ye once told me I'd always be welcome back by ya. Would that still be true?"

Jack let out a long smoke filled sigh before answering. It swirled in the moon light, obscuring him further. She could see it's path altered with the breath of his words.

"Aye, 't would. An' I'd give ya an' yer bun the bed." He gestured with the cigarette to the place they'd made the 'bun', creating new ghostly arcs in the air. " I'll not touch ye if ye've no heart fer it. 'Tis plane ya ne'er loved me."

He added the last almost as an after thought spoken barely above a whisper.

"That ain't so." She said softly, sadly.

He was silent for a long while before he spoke again. The tone of his melancholy did not change.

"Will ya leave again?"

"No. I will stay with ye."

"Ye've said that 'efore an' ya lef' me t'die_._"

"Ya didn' die, an' I came back."

"Only cause my seed growed in ya. When ya 'ave no need o'me, ye'll leave again. Jus' promise me ya won't be by again. If I'm still breathin, you'll fin' m'heart as shattered pieces in the dust."

Her heart ached for him, for his pain and his lossas she stood by the open door to the room more full than it appeared.

"I love ye." She whispered. "Truely, I do. I have need of ya t'love me again, if ya would."

"A worm what becomes a butterfly cannot be a worm again. I've never stopped lovin' ye."

Her eyes fell to the floor as the tears fell silently from the well. Everything ached to feel his touch, but she feared his wrath. She did not have to wonder or worry. The red glow of the cigarette sailed out the window like a star racing across the sky. She heard the thump of his boots before she saw the light catch, if only for a second, in his silvery eyes. The moment allowed her to see the tears that were streaming down his own face. The warmth of his arms embraced her and held her to his chest as tenderly as any man who loves had ever held another. She could hear his lungs working the air in and out of him and the steady thump of his heart.

"I missed ya." She admitted in a breath against his bare skin.

"I'm glad ye returnt t'me. I've been a lonely man since ya lef'."

"What happened t'the others?" She asked, resting her hands on his chest.

"Most 're dead, or gone. Lucy didn' survive the battle. Anne lived only two days after the smoke. I burnt what couldn't be saved. The traitor lived, an' I keep him so. He'll not see sun or moon fer the rest o'is days." He replied bitterly.

She didn't want to think about what he meant by some of his words. She didn't want to know. She needed rest. He pulled away from her enough to rest a warm hand on the swell of her stomach, pausing by her neck to touch the key. The baby kicked at his touch and, in the darkness, he grinned. Leading her to the bed, he helped her to lie down. He brought a blanket from the wardrobe and and extra pillow and lay beside her. He didn't try to take her or touch her sensual parts. He only kept her warm and caressed her roundness. Sleep took her with his hot breath on her back and his arms keeping out all the evil that might have tormented her mind.


	22. Pocket

Pain woke her the next morning followed by a gush of water that wasn't her bladder. Jack was quick take her soiled clothes and to fetch the cleanest towels and blankets he could find. He boiled water for sterilizing and soaked her clothes with soap in the tub. How he knew these things she did not know, nor did she care. At the moment her only concern was the sharp, stabbing that tightened her gut with an incomparable anguish. The tormenting ache came in waves that lasted longer and were more powerful each minutes between them became less and less as she lay on the bed, gripping the rails of the head board. Jack lay the towels under her and gave her a stick to bite down on. He'd sawed off the end of a broom handle. Even through her own suffering she could see his worry and fear. He had obviously come to the end of his knowledge at this point. He knelt beside her and took on of her hands in his.

"It'll be okay. I promise ye." He said.

The backs of his fingers from his free hand caressed her cheek to try and comfort her. His face was kind and his eyes sincere, but she could see his own fear in them. So she nodded to assure him as well as herself of his words. The overwhelming need to push and she obeyed her body's command. Jack hurriedly moved to the end of the bed when he realized what she was doing. The pain was excruciating. She could feel her body pushing and the baby working it's way down. She could feel the pressure of it's head stretching her further to enter the world. Gathering the last of her strength, she pushed for the final time with a loud, strained scream. She felt the body leave her, an emptiness in it's wake as well as relief. The babe's cry filled the room. She'd never heard a more beautiful sound. There was motion and the sound of water. Jack pulled something else out of her and tossed it into a deep pot he'd brought for the bloody towels and the cord, which he cut with a small hunting knife. Securing a new, clean towel around the new born, he left her parted legs to deliver her child to her waiting arms. He did not linger by, but returned to her nethers to clean her and apply medicine from an old, rusted tin box with a red intersecting lines on the top. She hardly felt his fingers at work on her as she held their baby. The most precious gift hushed the crying as she began so see softly to the little one whose face was bright red and healthy. She could already see the resemblances; Jack's nose and chin, her brow and cheek bones and wild dark hair. It was nearly an hour before the babe was calm enough to nurse from her swollen breasts. When Jack returned from cleaning up the mess with a blanket for them and a rag diaper, he knelt beside the bed to admire his son and the woman who birthed him.

"What shall we name him?" Leona asked plainly, grinning at the father of her child.

"I was thinkin' Pete, or Peter. Did ya have 'ne in min'?"

"Maybe James?" She said, thinking of the pilot whose shelter she borrowed.

She could not remember her father's name. Perhaps it was James as well. Perhaps it was Matthew. Or it may have been John or Marcus. It did not matter if the intent was present.

"James Peter?" Jack offered.

"Yes. 'Tis a good name."

She grinned at Jack as his face lit up. The light from the dawn was turning brighter with the coming of noon. The yellow glow sifted through the frayed curtains to warm his features and ignite his eyes with a cool fire. He kissed her on her dry lips and then the child as he suckled at his mothers breast.

"I'll fetch ya some water." He said, and hesitated to leave. "I love ye." He added.

She'd never seen him so genuine in his words and it moved her. Jack was a dangerous man, and he may have been touched by madness, but he was kind and gentle and good to her. As she looked into the serenity of his eyes, she knew he would never employ his insanity against her or their child. But as a deathclaw roams the wasteland, he would protect his brood with the ferociousness of his ink-sake.

"I love ye, also." She smiled.

As Jack returned moments latter with the glass of water, she realized she'd never been happier. Maybe it was the pain, or the joy of new life, or the hormones that ran through her like wild beasts, but she was content in that moment. The water was cool and clean on her lips. Her new born son slept at her chest. His father kneeled by her side offering her everything she sought. The world beyond the old, wooden walls and locked door did not matter in this moment. Nor did the suffering of a tongueless, limbless ghoul that was chained to the railing around the water pump.

Later she would find him and be appalled. But by then the town would slowly be rebuilding and her son was her most precious treasure. Jack kept them safe. Jack loved them. So she would read to him from the book of Poe, which she found after some hunting beneath a floor board in the kitchen. She would care for him until he died, which would not take long. Jack would burn the body. He would tell her ghouls were not good to eat. Then she would kiss him with their child in her arms and his hand would rest on her three month swollen belly to feel his spawn kick at his touch. And she would love him as he loved her, saving their insanity for those who dared threaten their pocket of happiness.

* * *

**I'd like to dedicate this story to Gixxer600 for without whose comments, support and suggestions this story may never have existed. Thank you!**


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